May 04, 2021

How to Improve Your Booking by Switching Perspectives

 

You do booking for a band, a DJ, or a solo act? Congratulations! It’s not the most popular job among artists. Not everyone can do it either. Being responsible for live booking means hard work that requires tact, tenacity, and self-esteem. However, there is a theoretically very simple basis for successful booking: take over the perspective of your counterpart! Understand what promoters want and find your stages faster.

In this article, we’ll introduce you to the different perspectives of booking agents – and how gigmit makes your live music life easier.

Who Wants What In Booking?

Maybe you recently read our FAQs for promoters? It’s about how application management works with gigmit. In other words, how promoters find the right live music for their gig among all the applications. This article is also interesting for artists and their booking. There are always two sides to the hard-earned live music coin: Artists and promoters. Both want different things from the joint concert.

If you understand the priorities and perspectives of promoters you will find the right stages for you and your project much faster – and your booking will not only be more successful but also more pleasant for both sides.

The Goals of Booking Agents

Booking agents organise concerts and thus bring musicians onto the stage. There are different perspectives and objectives. On the one hand, there are the booking interests of the artists. On the other side are the agents, who act in the interests of the promoters. We will now take a closer look at the four most important roles:

  1. Artist booking
  2. Club booking
  3. Festival booking
  4. Local promoter

Artists Want Audience & Fee

The artist booking is from the artist’s perspective. This booking agent represents the interests of artists which is to work efficiently: minimum expenditure with maximum income. His/her job is to get the artist on a promoter’s stage.

Band with golden jackets

Cost calculation at this booking stage entails knowing how much a concert or tour will cost: this cuts across merch, equipment, accommodation, stage, venue, etc. Attention through live presence is another concept to consider with artist booking because it is one of the most endearing attributes that lead to live success. People need to see artists live to know that they exist for potential bookings. So artist booking has to start somewhere – usually not in large stadiums. With artist booking you always have to decide what is currently more important: the attention through live presence or the money. Spoiler alert: In the beginning it’s rarely the money.

15% Commission

The financial aspect of the artist booking process also entails commissions that are paid to the bookers and agencies. If you work with an independent booker and agencies, you might have to pay a 15% commission for the booking process. It can be very useful to have your own booking agent. At a certain level of professionalism, it is also inevitable. But until then it is also possible – and advisable – to take your booking into your own hands and to gain experience.

Party people in the club

Music Plays for Money In the Club

Someone who does the booking for a club represents the promoter’s perspective. It’s also a risky one because promoters need to minimise their costs for the event organisation while simultaneously increasing the turnover – spend as little as possible on the event and generate as much income as possible.

Costs & Profile 

Promoters do not do this without reason. They have to cover running costs. They pay rent for their club, they have to pay their staff, insurance, electricity, etc. The artists’ fee is the smallest part of it. Small clubs are especially facing the risk of having to shut down. The creative interest of an agent who makes club bookings is the best possible selection of suitable artists for the club’s stage and its profile.

Booking artists: People at a festival

The Festival Line-Up

Festival booking means as well the promoter’s perspective. It is different from club booking because you are dealing with a more massive crowd, stage, and planning processes.

Great Audience Aso for Newcomers

Your goal as a festival booker is to bind the audience through either homo- or heterogeneous line-up. It is also freer than club booking because not every live act or DJ has to attract the same number of spectators. That’s why it is especially popular with even less known artists to play at festivals because people are already there.

Nevertheless, the total cost calculation must be kept in mind. What is also special about festival booking is that the work is often done by volunteers. These volunteers pursue personal interests, which are incorporated into their booking decisions as to which artist is booked for the festival.

Booking artists: guy knowing the backstage infrastructure

Local Promoter: Booking Expertise On Site

A local promoter is an agency that knows the conditions of clubs in a certain region, can rent them at special rates, and organises the concerts. The local promoter acts as a promoter and also represents similar interests. Local promoters are not the venues themselves. They are kind of gatekeepers with the knowledge of the regional stages, fans, conditions, and manners.

Working With Professionals

As an artist booker you can contact a local promoter to organise a show for your artist in a certain area. For the local promoter it is always important that the commission-based work pays off. As a rule, local promoters only work with newcomers in exceptional cases.

Matchmaking With Automated Switching of Perspectives

When it comes to booking artists two perspectives are crucial:

  1. the artist with the aim of getting as much out as possible and
  2. the promoter to keep the expenses for the event as low as possible.

Both sides have the common goal of also performing monetarily successful concerts. For successful booking negotiations, the ability to change perspectives is crucial. You have to understand what your counterpart wants, what is good for him/her, and be able to offer this to him/her.

Two-Sided Market Place

At gigmit, we bring these two interest groups together and thus artists onto the stage. gigmit is a two-sided market place where club and festival bookers advertise gigs to which artists or their artist bookers can apply. The promoters use gigmit as a management tool for the artists’ applications. The artists in turn present themselves clearly on their artist pages, the gigmit EPK.

Greatly Shortened Standard Communication

gigmit’s digital infrastructure is adapted to the needs of the industry. When you, as an artist, create or update your gigmit Artist Page you automatically answer the questions that are relevant to promoters and help them fulfill their booking goals. When promoters advertise a gig, it is precisely the aspects that are of interest to artist bookers that need to be specified. In this way, the standard communication process necessary for every booking is greatly shortened on gigmit – without losing any of its content. Both sides find out within seconds what they need to know from the other party.

banner: gig page

The revolutionary matchmaking idea has now grown into a global network that makes your live music life and booking artists easier. No matter which perspective you represent!


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