Music Concerts

To the majority performers, the enduring image of an musician manager is a caricature of a heavy-set, unkempt slob of a man, stuffed into a 2-sizes-too-small, off-the-rack department store suit, chomping on a cheap smelly cigar while sliding a gr simple hand unceremoniously into the back pocket of a starving artist. Indeed, somewhere in the vast landscape of the music universe, such malice exists. The vast majority of musician managers, however, are a motley collection of well-meaning, hardworking, selfless individuals struggling to make the dreams of a person they believe in come true.

For the legion of dedicated unbelievers out there, this is an article that attempts to shed light on the true benefit of an artist manager. Following are 8 reasons why a performer or artist needs a nice manager:

1. Career Guidance – It’s frequently extremely c hall enging for artists to step back from the day-to-day activities and see the extensive picture (you know – the old ‘forest-for-the-trees’ thing). A knowledgeable manager might see how everything in the extensive picture fits together, and might endorse the musician navigate through the frequently -confusing maze of activities that seem unrelated yet are all part of a massive jigsaw puzzle. The manager provides career guidance and endorses to performance the overall game plan for the musician and the artists’ team to follow.

2. Cheerleading – Even though listeners are the main cheerleaders for an artist, an individual has to communicate the same enthusiasm to the music business community. an performer manager will trumpet the artist’s message to record labels, booking agents,  promoters, media individual nel, club bookers, independent retail accounts, etc., in order to keep them all engaged and enthusiastic.

3. Prestige – According to the majority record industry professionals, there is something to be said about an artist that has a manager. The logic is that if an artist is wonderful enough to attract management, there must be something of worth present. In fact, the majority major labels refuse to sign an artist unless they have solid team (manager, attorney and publicist) in place. an artist in the absence of management is just too much drama! Labels would rather deal with someone who knows how the music business works and may make decisions on a non-emotional basis.

4. Buffer – A manager could act as an effective screening buffer amidst the artist and people that want to do business with the artist. This buffer tends to attract legitimate industry players while at the same time scaring away scam performers. There are no scarier words to a scam artist than “please talk to my manager”.

5. Time management – There simply is not enough time in the day to do everything that needs to be done in order to further the career of an artist. In between writing tunes, conducting interviews, designing artwork for CD’s and merchandise, managing a mailing list, filling out copyright paperwork, rehearsing with the band, employing and firing performers, updating band websites and MySpace.com profiles, getting pictures taken, shooting and editing DVD’s and YouTube videos, sending out packages and/or updating EPK’s, researching, repairing and buying equipment, etc., there isn’t time to furthermore craft a master game plan, solicit potential sponsorship partners, handle licensing requests, reach out to industry gatekeepers, attend industry networking gatherings, harass labels for tour assist, and so on. Some tasks can be delegated to the band while others can be handled by the manager.

6. Accountability – Part of a manager’s job is to hold individuals accountable. What happens when the financial tour guide that has been promised by the label fails to materialize? Or the check from the booking agent bounces? Or the FOH engineer at the show is MIA? Or the licensee fails to sign and return the contract but is using the artist’s songs anyway? Or the beer in the tour van vanishes? Somebody has to keep individuals honest, and that’s the majority appropriately the manager’s job.

7. Good Cop / Bad Cop – Need to fire the bass player but do not want to produce an enemy? Let the manager performance bad cop and do the firing. Need to re-negotiate your contract and request more of a promotion budget? Let the manager performance wonderful cop and keep a positive spin on the proceedings. There are plenty of chances when the musician and manager might trade off playing wonderful cop / bad cop.

8. Sounding board – A manager, even though standard ally an “honorary member of the band”, is a number of times on the outside looking in. Managers a number of times see things disparate ly than the artist, and might a number of times provide disparate perspectives, insights and solutions to problems the artist is encountering. Running suggestions by a knowledgeable manager prior to making decisions a number of times allows for good suggestions to become better and bad suggestions to be removed altogether from the to-do list.

So,there you’ve it! 8 wonderful reasons why an musician needs a manager. Having said all this, however, it is necessary to note that having a bad manager is worse than having no manager at all.  Many wannabe managers think they can just “wing-it” with an artist, and continue to operate with the “lets-record-a-3-song-demo-and-shop-it-for-a-record-deal” mentality, even though the music industry continues to undergo meaningful change s. New business models are emerging, and only those managers that stay at the leading edge of the learning curve will create successful strategies and provide meaningful counsel to their clients.