Monday, October 23rd, 2006
Agent Friendly Websites Not Too Friendly For Agents
It's the biggest hoax since Orson Welles' terrifying 1938 radio broadcast of "The War of the Worlds"... when America believed a news report about a Martian Invasion. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration. But, if you believe an agent friendly web site is a deterrent to direct dialing clients... I have a bridge you might be interested in purchasing. The only friendly thing about an agent friendly web site is how friendly the buyer gets with the performer an agent has presented.
It isn't rocket science to understand that anyone with a performer's name can do a simple computer search and find that performer's official web site, and/or contact information, in a matter of minutes. An agent friendly web site will provide enough key words to allow a search that will zero in on a personal credit history much less contact information.
Therefore, it goes without saying that every time anyone receives a link to an agent friendly web site, they are essentially given an invitation to contact the performer directly if they choose. Of course, the clients within most agent territories are trusted contacts that wouldn't jeopardize their agent/client relationship with such disloyalty. At the next level however, things almost always go sideways. And, coincidentally, this is the level where a performer can begin to make some serious headway. As an agent begins to network with other agents via established contacts, conventions, etc., and the distribution of publicity materials travel around the world, a performer can get recognized very quickly... especially, if the performer is represented by a number of credible agents. This is a very common practice among tribute performers today. It is at this second level where a performer, client or agent will often do the deal directly without the associate that passed it to them. The rationalization is that my colleague only presented an idea... I did all the work. Bottom line... the anonymous, or arm's length performer, client or agent can proceed without the original presenter knowing anything about the transfer of contacts. You cannot keep track of a network chain beyond the first level. Direct contact through web connections make it impossible to follow any networking process known to man. So, it seems to be decision time for many quality agents who are becoming increasingly discouraged. Do they continue to allow themselves to get burned by the new, self-propelled talent coming along? Do they work only with the diminishing core of loyal associates that bring them a living for the moment... knowing full well that they are becoming the dinosaurs of tomorrow? The writing appears to be on the wall.
Not that any of this makes much difference to the ultimate success or failure of the exceptionally talented performers. Great talent eventually gravitates to the top. And, many of the agents, managers (and others) who helped immensely along the way are not even known to the performer much less given any credit for their success. There must be countless agents thinking very hard on this situation. I sympathize with them. It is sad to realize our business is beginning to lose this experienced and knowledgeable core of industry professionals.
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Posted By Les Vogt @ 12:00 AM
Author's site: http://www.members.shaw.ca/lesvogt
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BlueAngel's comment posted July 24th @ 5:06 PM:
This article by Les is very true. From a stand point of an agent, the only
performers you can trust are the ones you work with on a regular
basis. The ones you have given work to over and over. It goes both
ways you must treat all artists with the same respect to start out with
until they do something to tarnish that trust. There are more and more
venues not to trust they are the ones reaching out to your artists to
save a buck. Not so much the artists. I feel as if you treat your regular
artists like family they will respect you more and be more respectful. If
you show you care about them and go see them perform once in a
while when they are at gigs they appreciate it so much. We hear over
and over you are one of the few agents that come out to see us play
and they appreciate it so much. Loyalty is earned.
Commentors site: http://www.bluangel.com |
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celebrators___lisa_and_steve_york's comment posted April 14th @ 2:01 PM:
An excellent article. I was a booking agent for 18 years, mostly with my own agency. The points raised in this article are the reason why I, and most agents, use a bookback clause in our contracts. This states that the original agent gets their commission if the artist and buyer contract another date within a certain amount of time ( usually one or two years.)
An agent cannot force the buyer and the artist to go through the agency every time, but at least the agent gets some compensation for the initial work. I very rarely had to enforce the bookback as I usually dealt only with ethical clients and hopefully provided a value to both parties. In 18 years almost everyone honored the bookback. I even had artists pay me on dates that I would not otherwise have known about.
As the saying goes, contracts are a starting point for negotiation. If an artist and a club wanted to deal directly without me and the dates were frequent, I would generally waive the one year agreement and agree to take a commission for the next six months or the next three dates, whichever came first.
Commentors site: /celebrators___lisa_and_steve_york |
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's comment posted April 14th @ 5:09 PM:
I would LOVE to see truly talented artists rise to the top. However, I must disagree to some extent. Ive seen/known some musicians who are so very talented that they eclipse many excellent established artists. Problem? Well...they dont live in LA, Chicago, New York, Atlanta.
How do they succeed? They move? Sometimes; or should I say many times, they cant.
Ah well..2 cents is 2 cents worth.
Commentors site: http://www.pearlhandleband.com |
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jim_offerman's comment posted April 15th @ 2:40 AM:
As an artist, I can't imagine why I would willingly want to bypass my agents like that. They're on my team to make my life easier, why would I be difficult to them? Doesn't make sense...
Commentors site: http://www.jimofferman.net |
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