Choosing an artist is one of the most exciting parts of planning an event. Although you may be anxious, you need to have a lot of details pre-planned and ready before you are able to make an official offer to an artist. Here are a few things to make sure you’ve taken care of before you submit an offer to an artist.
1. VENUE
Make sure your venue is on hold or secured/booked for the date you are offering. This is so you don’t run into a major issue later on where suddenly you have an artist booked, but no venue to put them in. Once an artist is confirmed, it’s often very difficult and expensive to change the date, especially if they’ve already arranged travel and planned their schedule to work with your date and location. They may have even turned down other offers for that date in order to keep their word on yours.
2. FUNDS
It’s best to make sure you have enough funds available for your entire event. That means the money is set aside and ready for you to spend, such as an allocated budget for a university free student show or a downtown org’s free concert. Sponsors or other organizations may be footing some of your bill, but you want to make sure those funds are secured before booking the artist. If you need the event to happen in order to pay for your event, that is a potential cash flow issue. You don’t want to run out of money and have trouble paying the artist or your subcontractors.
3. SUBCONTRACTORS
Make sure your production vendor, security company, police department, and venue staff are all available and holding your date before booking your artist. Having to later cancel your event because you could not staff it properly is a huge let down and can cause issues with the artist team, your venue, and more.
4. YOUR DETAILS
Have a good picture of what your event will look like, including all the ticketing and marketing details. Determine the highest possible ticket prices you may charge, even if you don’t quite know yet, and list “TBD, no higher than $__” on your offer so the artist doesn’t think you are trying to raise prices and make more profit if you try to change it later on. Have an advertising plan mapped out so you can hit the ground running and get potential radio partners and graphics approved faster. Listing every possible detail you have in mind on an artist’s offer is going to save you a lot of questions and concerns from the artist team later on in your planning process.
5. PERMISSION
Make sure that you have all permissions and approvals from the “powers that be” higher up in your organization to book, plan, and produce your event. Also, be sure that whomever has contract-signing authority is onboard with all the details you are putting forth to the artist. That way when handed a contract to sign, they aren’t surprised by anything they are committing the organization to. Then your contract will flow smoothly through the proper channels and become fully-executed more quickly.
Why do all of these details need to be mapped out and ready in advance of securing an artist? If an artist accepts your offer, that is considered by the music industry to be a binding placeholder until the contract can be fully-executed and signed by both parties. This is to ensure both parties can keep moving forward. While you wait for the paperwork to be signed, your team can start planning and marketing for the event, while the artist team can start planning travel and other logistics.
Think of it as being similar to buying a house. You don’t make an offer on a house unless you are fully ready, financed, and prepared to purchase it. You don’t want to get yourself into a situation you cannot get out of or that will financially put you underwater. Same is the case when booking live entertainers.
Jolene Chevalier
Founder & Talent Buyer | How To Concerts
Jolene has been a middle buyer for over 15 years, helping colleges and others with their concerts, comedians, and speakers. (And, yes, she is named after the Dolly Parton song.) She would love to talk with you about helping to book, plan, and prepare for your event.
Jolene Chevalier
Founder & Talent Buyer | How To Concerts
Jolene has been a middle buyer for over 15 years, helping colleges and others with their concerts, comedians, and speakers. (And, yes, she is named after the Dolly Parton song.) She would love to talk with you about helping to book, plan, and prepare for your event.
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