The Challenging World of Artist Management

Managing performance artists, bands and musicians can be a complex business and probably has more challenges than many other professions. What aspects of artist management make this work tricky to navigate and create a successful career for the performance artists and musicians they manage. 

Artist management is fundamentally a people business that often requires dealing with difficult and fickle personalities. The artist's manager exists to promote and help artists achieve their full potential by overseeing their career trajectory and handling their day-to-day affairs. Whether the manager is an individual or an agency team they need to have an intimate understanding of the music and entertainment industry along with good business acumen skills. The typical challenges faced by the artist’s manager can include the following. 

Networking and Relationships. 
The manager must have the ability to manage a complex number of relationships typically between the artist, record labels, promoters and fans. The cultivation of relationships with talent scouts, producers, and other artists, can open doors for opportunities such as collaborations, endorsements and media appearances. Networking abilities are a key requirement for any manager responsible for an artist. 

Creativity vs Business. 
It can be a fine balancing act for the manger to consider both creativity and business priorities. A good manager should be able to provide guidance to the artist when it comes to creative direction and commercial considerations. The manager needs to be up to date with market trends and provide feedback to the artist to provide balanced guidance. Such pressures can impact on an artist’s mental health and the manager should provide emotional support where possible too. 

Financial Management. 
The manager performs their role in exchange for a fee and a percentage of sales revenue, so it is in their interest to make the artist as commercially successful as possible. However, for any up-and-coming artist the income streams can be uncertain and unpredictable. The manager's experience should help the artist with financial planning by managing their record label deals, merchandise sales and event appearance fees. The manager will also be responsible for managing expenses for tours, recording and marketing promotions. 

Legal Obligations. 
An artist can be faced with a plethora of legal contracts and agreements from record labels, promoters, licensing agreements, endorsements and festival organisers. The manager should have the experience and knowledge to help navigate these to get favourable terms and protection of the artist's long term interests. 

Scheduling and Logistics. 
The manager will draw up a schedule of activities for their artist which can include media appearances, recording sessions, tours and live gigs. The manager can do this on spreadsheets and calendars but there are dedicated software packages that can help with these tasks and activities making scheduling and logistics more manageable. 

Industry Landscape. 
The music industry is highly competitive and only a small percentage of artists and musicians ever achieve financial success. It is the manager's job to have an intimate understanding of the industry and what is trending. The manager must work tirelessly to get attention for the artists they manage including marketing and promotional activity to gain visibility and traction in the desired markets. 

For festival organisers planning their events using a software management platform like Festival Pro gives them all the functionality they need manage every aspect of their event logistics. The guys who are responsible for this software have been in the front line of event management for many years and the features are built from that experience and are performance artists themselves. The Festival Pro platform is easy to use and has comprehensive features with specific modules for managing artists, contractors, venues/stages, vendors, volunteers, sponsors, guestlists, ticketing, cashless payments and contactless ordering.

Image by Sammy-Sander via Pixabay

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