The Music Business Buddy
A podcast that aims to educate and inspire music creators in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music. A new episode is released each Wednesday and aims to offer clarity and insight into a range of subjects across the music industry, all through the lens of a music creator for the benefit of other music creators. The series includes soundbites and interviews with guests from all over the world together with commentary and clarity on a range of topics. The podcast is hosted by award winning music industry professional Jonny Amos.
Jonny Amos is a music producer with credits on a range of major and independent labels, a songwriter with chart success in Europe and Asia, a senior lecturer in both music creation and music business at BIMM University UK, director of The SongLab Ltd and the author of The Music Business for Music Creators.
www.jonnyamos.com
The Music Business Buddy
Episode 46: Understanding How To Build Growth in The Live Sector
Standing at the crossroads of streaming and live performance, today's musicians face a peculiar challenge. You might command millions of streams yet struggle to fill a small venue, or pack rooms with fans while your Spotify numbers remain modest. This disconnect represents one of the most fascinating dynamics in music today.
Allow me to take you on a journey through the mechanics of the live music sector, drawing from decades of experience from playing to just two people in a pub to selling out tours within 18 months. I try to demystify the roles that power the live ecosystem: promoters who book and market shows, festival organizers who champion emerging talent, tour managers who keep everything running smoothly, and booking agents who strategically help artists scale up to larger venues and new territories.
Perhaps the most compelling insight comes from questioning conventional wisdom about career building. While playing major cities might look impressive on tour posters, the real growth often happens in smaller towns where dedicated fans return with friends. This grassroots approach, combined with strategic pitching to the right booking agents, creates the foundation for sustainable career development.
The magic happens when streaming success and live drawing power finally converge—when online metrics and real-world audience connection reinforce each other. This alignment creates the kind of market presence that attracts industry investment and opens doors to wider opportunities. For artists willing to embrace both worlds while maintaining authentic connections with fans, the pathway to success becomes clearer, even in today's complex music landscape.
Ready to transform your approach to the live music business? This episode provides the strategic framework and practical wisdom to help you build a thriving performance career, one fan at a time.
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The Music Business Buddy. The Music Business Buddy Hello everybody and a very warm welcome to you. You're listening to the Music Business Buddy with me, johnny Amos, podcasting out of Birmingham in England. I'm the author of the book the Music Business for Music Creators, available in hardback, paperback and ebook format. I'm a music creator with a variety of credits I'm a consultant, an artist manager and a senior lecturer in both music business and music creation. Wherever you are, whatever you do, consider yourself welcome to this podcast and to a part of the community, to this podcast and to a part of the community. I'm here to try and educate and inspire music creators from all over the world in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music.
Speaker 1:In this week's episode, we're going to be looking at the live sector, so understanding the mechanics and the basic business principles of the live sector. So that includes things like grassroots growth. Tour managers, festivals, promoters, booking agents what do they all do? So let's get rolling. Okay, one of the most fascinating things about this subject is this we're in a time now in the mid 2020s and this has perhaps been true for about 10 years now, right whereby you can have a really, really good live following, a good fanatical following of, with a loyal fan base, and yet you can really struggle when it comes to streaming numbers. Also, the polar opposite is true, whereby you can have millions of streams and really not have much of a live following. And so where the kind of growth rates of you know, hard data sits and live ticket sales and streaming, you know it's really only when those two actually triangulate and connect and move forward that artists really starts to catch on a wider level. So that's an interesting thought to begin with, because today you know there are acts that have millions of streams on Spotify and would struggle to sell 200 tickets in their hometown. It's hard to believe but it happens. But those acts also walk those same streets as other acts that could sell easily a 200 capacity venue, quite simply, quite quickly within a couple of days, and yet don't have the streams to use as a leverage to attract a sort of successful booking agent or even a manager sometimes. You know, growing a fan base on the live circuit has always been a key driver of growth for any artist that isn't, you know, a straight up pop act or perhaps just a studio only concept.
Speaker 1:Live music is one of the things that has stood the test of time throughout all of the changes in the industry, you know, in recent decades. So the economics have switched, we know this right. The economics have switched, we know this right. The basic economic factor has switched between artists that used to tour to sell a record and now, today, acts use streaming as a marketing tool to attract a live following. However, the art that's actually shared on stage hasn't really changed.
Speaker 1:So you know, live music it's undeniably special, we love it. Songs have a whole new meaning. Undeniably special, we love it. Songs have a whole new meaning. Artists create a connection with their audiences in a way that can only really be done on a live level sometimes. So you know, it's difficult to articulate just how special it is, but there is also something, perhaps even quite tribal right, about standing in a large crowd of people all enjoying an atmosphere and sharing that energy that is created by a live performance. You know so if you were to ask any. You know emerging artists. You know what they want out of their careers. Perhaps, you know, as long as their ideals are with performing live and not everybody's are, but if they are, then perhaps scaling up their live music presence would probably be mentioned in some capacity in the first half of their answer. That's what I find anyway. So you know, for some creators it is the thing that defines their musical identity. You know what they do on stage and how they're perceived. So you know, let's unpack it a little bit. Let's have a look at some of the some of the roles in the sector. All right, let's start with promoters.
Speaker 1:So promoters at all levels are, you know, a cornerstone of the live sector, you know, with with several purposes and roles and duties that they carry out. So promoters can either be individuals or they can be companies, and their core aim is to effectively promote live music and artists. So they range from those who book artists to play at small grassroots venues to those who book huge festivals. So often the venue itself can also be a promoter. Promoters generally secure bookings for venues that can range from, you know, clubs and pubs and halls, arenas, even festivals. They enter into contracts with venues or with event organisers which outline the terms of the agreement reached between those parties, right? So the promoter then books the artist to play, promotes the event, in theory anyway, through, you know, posters, banners, social media, ad campaigns, whatever it might be, and engages also ideally with the press to secure further coverage of that event. So duties will also vary on, you know, I guess, depending on the size of the artist and also the size of the venue.
Speaker 1:But promoters are responsible for the audience experience to some extent, right. So that also includes things like security and logistics and ticket sales. Promoters also negotiate on the fees for artists in advance. So they generally have a wide network of music professionals, especially booking agents, which we'll come on to afterwards venues, managers, event organisations and, of course, you know, artists themselves that book directly with promoters. So promoters at a more sort of grassroots level, who tend to work in kind of regional areas, towns, cities et cetera, are often quite useful to talent scouts and to A&R personnel because they're looking to, you know, to find emerging talent right. So promoters on a national and a kind of international scale tend to be more proactive in the promotion of live events, where the emphasis is on gaining visibility for the artist's tour dates. But on a on a more kind of, you know, grassroots level, promoters can also be a huge filter for talent festivals.
Speaker 1:So in addition to providing support slots, obviously for sort of headline acts, music festivals also play a pretty crucial role in bringing new artists to a wider audience. In fact, that's one of the very hallmarks of many festivals is to introduce new talent to new audiences and be associated with that championing new artists. Because, if you think about it, since the turn of, let's say, the century, you know festivals have just grown exponentially. Right, there's just there's more festivals now than there's ever been before, and so with that competition comes the need to do something different, and championing local and newly emerging talent on a national, local, international level is a really, really big, big part of that. You know, also, many major festivals around the world cater for families and a much more kind of broad age mix in addition to younger generations of listeners, right? So these are the things that have changed in the last sort of 25 years or so. I suppose.
Speaker 1:Festivals can range of course, from, you know, small town fusion festivals combining food and culture and local music, all the way up to, you know, mega festivals like Glastonbury in the UK, coachella in the USA, for example. Now, festivals, they're fun, aren't they Right? They happen generally in the warmer months and they associate themselves with just fun, good times, memories, etc. But they are just a brilliant way of new emerging artists to establish themselves and, to you know, instantly extend that fan base, perhaps even more powerfully than streaming can, right, because you're offering an experience to people. So it's it's very important that recording artists do the research right on on festivals and and, uh, you know, just to kind of identify which would be the ones that are most suited to them. Right, there's nothing worse than kind of, you know, go, oh great, yeah, we got this on this festival over here. Bang we go, and then you go, oh no, this is totally wrong, isn't it? This? We had a great day, but it's just not a good fit, and that's all down to research. Right, and research also extends itself to understanding the application process, the deadlines, that kind of thing. Many booking agents and managers expect bands and artists to scale themselves up and to build their stage show through appearances at local and regional festivals. But there are also many emerging artists who get a major break right at major festivals, you know, through networking and stuff. So sponsors can also be influential in suggesting acts for festival slots, as can contemporary music, universities and regional radio and various other pipeline access points into the festival circuit. It's a festival promoter's job to be aware, right, of emerging artists who are building their reputations, as many large festivals, you know, want to be associated with breaking talent.
Speaker 1:What about tour managers, right? I mean, I must be honest with you guys. I've seen so many different types of tour managers over the years. That can really really vary from kind of just on the ground, quite militants, you know, enforcers of timekeeping on a kind of small tour, right up to like. You know those kind of crazy busy tour managers that are great at their spreadsheets and carry around two different phones and you know but one thing they always are are pretty organized, you, because a tour manager plays a pretty crucial on the ground role in the success of a tour and a tour manager is often defined by their. You know their ability right to juggle logistics and time and emergencies and crisis response, people management right, while also simultaneously supporting the audience experience and and handling. You know, travel arrangements for artists and crew and budgeting and health and safety, artist support. You know all sorts of different unexpected tasks. Crikey, I'm putting people off becoming tour managers here, aren't I? No, do do that role. If that's something you want to do, it's a very, very rewarding role. Loads of brilliant people do it.
Speaker 1:The tour manager's role is also an around the clock responsibility, right, which in many cases starts several months in advance of a tour, you know, through efficient planning and also you know, when you really look at the kind of, has a tour been successful? A lot of it, often, you know, perhaps unfairly, but sits on a tour manager a lot of the time. You know they have to be the one that kind of balances the books and reports back and says you know, has this worked? Has it not? This is what's been spent, this is what's been made. Here we're at. You know that's a big job, right. So you know a tour manager is somebody who you know can be relied upon, right. Who's that kind of central point of safety, of good kind of calm, measured, calculated approaches to how you get through something.
Speaker 1:Booking agents okay, so often referred to, as you know, sometimes just agents or music agents or talent agents. Booking agents are music industry professionals or companies, right, that secure live bookings for artists by working in partnership with promoters, venues, event organisers, festivals etc. To secure gigs. Now, often you know they work quite closely with artist management and also with artists. Booking agents are responsible for booking tours, but also, you know one-off live performances as well. Booking agents you know they tend to do quite well in the areas of contracts and fee negotiations and they generally they take a commission on the artist's fee in exchange for their time, their services, their expertise. Booking agents also tend to sort of excel at the logistical side of things, tend to excel at the logistical side of things. So your itineraries, your travel arrangements, backline and technical arrangements, accommodation, that kind of thing. Booking agents also support the marketing of live performance events alongside the promoter and the artist team, although that can vary on scale and territory.
Speaker 1:Many booking agents also help an artist and their informed decisions about kind of strategy and market trends in relation to actually how to upscale, you know, an artist from a certain level up to a next level, maybe going from one circuit up to another, and what that path might look like you know. So I've often found over the years the booking agents work pretty closely with managers, especially when it comes to scheduling right, because you know you get a schedule wrong and you have to unpick everything and start again. So you know working quite closely with managers is very important. By the way if I just pause for a minute as we're about sort of 13 minutes in, or so. Can you see the crossover between three things so far, right? So look at the crossover point between promoters, uh, between festivals, between booking agents and tour managers, by the way, right. So there are certain times where, where I've talked about those four different things so far, where I've started to kind of repeat myself a little bit between some of the overlap on the tasking between those things.
Speaker 1:That's for two reasons, everybody, right. Number one, because there is overlap. Certain booking agents will do this where a tour manager might be more responsible for that. There are variables to it, right, dependent upon scale and culture and different music genres, and that kind of stuff there shouldn't be, but there is. It's just life. And the other aspect is this right, sometimes you get people that just are so reliable at what they do that they become a go-to person. A lot of tour managers are like that. That's why you know a lot of booking agents.
Speaker 1:Have, you know certain favoured tour managers? Because they just know they can kind of go oh, it's them, great, we can rely on them, in the same way that a band can, right, let's imagine doing this tour without that tour manager. Oh, it'd be so difficult, they're brilliant. We don't have to deal with the promoters, they do it. You know the crossover between all these things. You know that idea of kind of scaling up, building a network, building a team. A lot of people use that word these days, don't they? But what it really means is putting trust in other people around you.
Speaker 1:No-transcript, that well, I thought promoters did that, but actually they both kind of do that a little bit right. When it comes to promotion, for example, um, you know, logistics can cross over between a tour manager and a booking agent. So you know, there are those little overlap areas which I think can kind of lead to a little bit of needless confusion sometimes as to where the book lands with the responsibility of a different type of professional. But hopefully that clears it up a little bit. Ok, let's move into a different segment now. Here we go Grassroots growth. Ok, this is at the absolute heart of everything. Little bit. Okay, let's move into a different segment now, here we go. Grassroots growth. Okay, this is at the absolute heart of everything in the live sector.
Speaker 1:You know, many music creators are are, of course, keen to win the fans of the world's major cities, but it is healthy to question whether this is always the right approach, right? So, when it comes to building a following on the live circuit, smaller towns may be preferable to big cities, no matter how appealing the tour poster right might actually look when all those big cities are listed on there. I know that looks cool, right, but it's not always the best way to scale things up right? So venues some venues, for example, here in the uk have have a very kind of ready-made community and a fan base that already exists that support a lot of artists that go to those venues. Now, I don't see those kind of places in cities, but I do see them in towns and in villages. So music creators would be well advised to think how a booking agent actually thinks, and that is with strategy and with purpose.
Speaker 1:Now, I say that because a keen eye for growth is perhaps more important, right than personal preferences or musical snobbery. Let's take example this right. Let's take a local metal band right that despises tribute acts. Right now, they would actually be far better place supporting a metallica tribute act right for several shows, rather than playing to I don't know 15 people at their own local gig, right, you see what I mean. Right about musical snobbery. So overlooking one's values, let's say, is not really a compromise of integrity if it works to the best interests of that metal band. Right.
Speaker 1:Growth is key because despondency can very, very, very quickly kick in if an act is continually playing the same places to the same people. You know, things can very, very, very quickly get stale on a grassroots level if that happens, and that's not necessarily a reflection of the music or the performance, but rather a reflection of the strategy. You know that same metal band could instead be, you know, researching tastemakers in their sub-genre by identifying YouTubers and bloggers and journalists who are keen to find that next big metal act. And these they don't need to be people in their own hometown or even in their own home country, right, the traction that they build from that can then be used as press leverage to gain local and regional tour support slots, especially if they can prove that they have a good local following. That a local, you know that a touring band can tap into right. So that's generally how it starts. So you know that local support can be driven not only by their fantastic live show but also through their continued improvement in the studio. You know, and just that general approach to good PR that they build for themselves by thinking more innovatively about their social media output, right? So before long, that band doing interviews about their humble beginnings and the good old days and reminiscing about the places that no longer exist, instead of staying in those places and rotting inside them. You see the difference, everybody, between those two things. It's avoidable, and it's avoidable with one word, and that is strategy.
Speaker 1:Okay, now let's talk about pitching, because it's fairly straightforward to kind of get off the ground on a grassroots level by working with local promoters, you know. So I'm talking about the kind of promoters that would say you know, you get, like, you know, x amount back if you get 25 people through the door, etc. Etc. That's where it starts, right. And then it has to grow from there, doesn't it? So it has to be right let's go and do gig swaps, let's go and go to other towns and cities and different places. And again, this is where the research comes in, right, it's kind of like where can we play? Where can we go and play? A lot of that is down to research, and sometimes that means looking outside of social media and just looking a little deeper, going onto that second, third page of Google and finding those venues that absolutely cater for what you do, right. So that's one side of it.
Speaker 1:But beyond promoters, there is, of course, you know you'd have a tour manager. It's kind of easier to get a tour manager because they're a paid role, right. Finding good ones can be hard, right, but you know it's kind of something that you can get once you've got the money to do it. But perhaps one of the key people to pitch to there, right, is actually a booking agent, because a booking agent, as I mentioned earlier, they're the ones that really kind of help you to kind of strategically step up a few levels. Now, here's the thing that booking agents ask artists, and it's exactly the same thing that everyone asks artists is you know, who are you? What do you do, where are you from, what genre are you in, right? All the answers that should kind of form a bio, really right.
Speaker 1:Now, that question, when they say things like you know, oh, what style are you in, or who would you support, or what playlist should you go on, what they're trying to do is they're actually trying to figure out how to sell you, because if they don't know how to sell you, they're probably not going to want to work with you If they get an idea of where you sit in the landscape of the live circuit, what kind of level you could go in at, where you can start on a grassroots level, and then it gives them an idea of how to actually scale you up right. But they're kind of going to need to have a pretty good understanding of, like you know where you want to go, where you see yourself going and who you could share a stage with, right, I think it's a pretty impossible task for them if they don't know the answers to those things. And if they don't know the answers to those things, they'll be asking you, and if you don't, they're not going to work with you. So it goes back to that same old age old question set that comes from everybody, including record companies and managers and PR, which is what are you, where do you sit, what style are you in, which all reverses itself back to how do I sell you? And if you can tell someone how to sell you, they're more likely to want to sell you. So there is nothing to stop anyone from reaching out to booking agents, and loads of people, by the way, will tell you that that's not the right way to do it, and I can tell you that there are plenty of people that I know that have done that and it's worked are plenty of people that I know that have done that and it's worked. So, yes, in an ideal world, a booking agent would become aware of you because you've spread your wings musically and you've started to work with different promoters and you've got a few streams and maybe a booking agent hears about you and they get in touch with you. Bam, brilliant. But what about if that doesn't happen? What about, actually, if maybe, just maybe, you need to be a bit more proactive.
Speaker 1:So here's where you go. You start by researching who the most suitable ones are. It's fairly easy to do. You just have to think outside the box and google. Just start by googling booking agents, followed by your country, followed by your genre. It will begin to funnel results that can become your starting point as to where you pivot from in order to find the right people. You find those right people. You go onto their website, you look at their submission policy, if they have one and if they don't, you just hit the contact button and then you email them. And this is what you email them. You tell them who you are, where you're from, what you do and what your plans are, and you leave your music with them, because they're either going to come back or they're not.
Speaker 1:But this is the law of averages, right? This is a numbers game, so the more you do that, the more it will yield results. Most of them probably won't get back to you, but some of them might, and if they do, then you've made something happen instead of waiting it for come to you, right? So that's a great place to get started with booking agents, and actually it works more effectively if you don't just kind of blast out an email to loads of them. It actually works better if you put that person's name in there and you maybe even mention some of the artists that they work with, right, and just sort of you know, go, hey, we see that you do this. We're in the same wheelhouse. We do this over here. This is where we're trying to get to. Would you like to set up a chat? That's a great way of doing things. It's very businesslike, right. So that's a good idea to go forward with.
Speaker 1:Okay, so there's a few sort of general musings about the mechanics of the live sector, on a kind of operational level as to kind of where things are at what that, what roles uh actually sit within this, uh, what those people do and how to work with them and, most importantly, how to scale up with them so that you go from playing to hardly anybody in a pub, in a cafe, to then scaling it up to that next level. Guys, I'm going to level with you. I used to be in a rock group 20 years or so ago. Right, sounds like a long time ago, it feels like nothing to me, but I was in a group that played to two people in a pub, right, and then scaled it up to do sellout tours within around about 18 months.
Speaker 1:It was an utterly remarkable thing to witness that level of growth moving that quickly, without any kind of label, support, right, and it was done through hard graft of just playing and playing and playing and playing. And it was done through hard graft of just playing and playing and playing and playing. And, guys, when I tell you that you know those cities on that tour date, yes, they look good, but I can tell you the growth came from playing in towns, the growth came from working pocket towns and going and playing in the likes of Harlow and Wigan and all these kind of smaller kind of towns that may not look like they're on the map, but my God they are, because when you go and talk to those three girls at the back of the room that came to see you, they will be there again next time and they'll be there with their friends. And a lot of people don't talk about that side of it, but it could be that actually that's a far stronger emotional touch point than a passive stream.
Speaker 1:There are loads of things that have changed in this business over the last few decades, and that is one thing that hasn't changed at all. So that's a very important aspect to think of. And when I talk about these things, it comes from a place of passion, because it comes from the place of experience. I can tell you that it is entirely possible to build a good following by working hard at it, because eventually, what starts to happen is that you'll notice the kind of people that are coming to those gigs and you'll look at them and you'll be able to then figure out the kind of people that they are. What do they look like, what clothes do they wear? So then, when you then talk to that branding specialist, that markete, that pr, and they say who are your fans and you can literally explain them. It is then at that point that you can start to target those similar kind of audiences online and scale up even further.
Speaker 1:So if you go right back to the first triangulation point on this podcast, where I talked about that discordance between streaming and live, when we connect those two things we get proper growth right, and that is what I'm talking about. Right is the alignment between those two things, because they can feel like two worlds that almost kind of sit independently from each other and for many they are. But I can tell you they can, they do and they should coexist. And when they do, that's when you're talking about investment from other parties because they can see that there's a major market behind what you do, because you've already started to own a piece of it. Anyway, there's a few thoughts for you about the live sector and also its relationship to the streaming ecosystem and all that kind of stuff. Okay, I'm going to leave those thoughts with you to let them marinate in your mind. Please feel free to reach out to me anytime you like. Have a wonderful day and may the force be with you. Christmas party, the Music Christmas Party.
