NICK'S "TURN" AT THE BOOKING RING ILMC 15 - MARCH 2003 Good Morning, I'm Nick Hobbs from Charmenko, I'm not quite sure what I do but whatever it is, it's fucking hard work... I had a terrible dream last night dream, a sleep-threatening nightmare, and I'd just like to stress that this dream bears no resemblance whatsoever to reality - it's fiction, the invention of a troubled mind, a dream which has nothing to do with the real and pleasantly co-operative world of organising concerts in which we all work constructively together in the interest of shows which are a success for the artist, the public, the crew - and the promoter anyway this dream, this complete tissue of lies - which has absolutely nothing to do with anyone I've ever worked with and therefore is not a career suicide note - was that at some future ILMC (let's say ILMC 94) there would be a school - a university - for agents where agents could learn a little bit more about the acts they represent I mean like - how many people are in the tour party (more or less of course) - how much the airfreight or excess baggage weighs (more or less) and who's supposed to be paying for it - how long the set is - whether the artist is going to demand "something special and especially illegal" 5 minutes after getting off the plane or 5 minutes before going onstage - whether the artist has a drink/drug/punctuality/health/sanity/fear of flying/reliability problem - whether the artist is just crap live! And not only would the agent know all this admittedly boring and pointless stuff but they would also tell it to the promoter without the information having to be extracted by threats of violence - or not extracted at all - just guessed at and in this school, agents would have to learn a code of good practice where promoters were told: - whether the agent no longer represents the act (as opposed to the silence which has been known to be the reply in such cases) - whether the act is not touring at all and therefore there's no point in getting hot under the collar wondering why total silence might follow an admittedly difficult question like "could artist suchandsuch be available on suchandsuch a date for suchandsuch a city?" - whether the act is touring but there isn't a cat in hell's chance that they'll play Bucharest or wherever it is because they're only playing major markets to support their new album, and because the artist doesn't want to go to Bucharest anyway - by the way this school would have a remedial section for agents who ask "where is Riga? where is Ljubljana?" and who mix up Slovakia and Slovenia - whether the agent is booking an entirely speculative tour - i.e. the act MIGHT tour but only if the agent comes up with a fantastically lucrative and improbable run of dates - and even then maybe not... - whether there's a new record coming out or there isn't and when it comes out and on which lable and what the artist's website is and whether the artist's lable just won't send any promo to Kazakhstan because they don't sell records there but don't expect the management to supply the promo because they don't have any and they don't care and in fact the artist was dropped 3 years ago and they're right out of promo anyway and you might as well go and buy it at your local record store - but still the artist won't do any phoners or IDs or a press-conference and isn't life a bitch... - whether the artist will tour with a band or a banjo - whether the artist will tour with production or not, whether they can use local backline or not, and even whether it's a live show or half-playback or a guy sitting behind a laptop or a mixer or God knows what - whether the artist will refuse certain kinds of sponsors and there's no point in even asking - what the rider is (or at least what it was 5 years ago) - whether the tour will be cancelled if there's a war in Iraq - I hope that all touring artists have discussed with their managers and agents what they'll do if there is a war - but wouldn't it be nice for the promoter to know... And in the advanced class there would be lessons on venues and ticket prices and markets - in my dream - which has no resemblance to reality of course - some agents seem to have little interest in whether the venue is right for that artist in that market at that time, whether the scaling is right for that market etc - wouldn't it be so great if the agent started from a discussion with the promoter about which is the optimum venue or event and what scaling would be optimum and what are the sponsorship possibilities for that market and then worked out the deal from that and there would be consistency of policy about artist's tax - should deals be net or gross of tax? - in my humble opinion they should always be gross of tax but who cares about tax anway because as Carl says it's boring... And also part of my dream-code of good practice was that agents would not negotiate deals in bad faith - where they never intend to do the deal with you but are just interested in using you to bump up the price for the competitor they want to work with and contracts (unsigned of course) would be issued promptly following onfirmation - say within a week And why is it that promoters should have to agree bonuses which are fine in major markets but in marginal markets mean there's no way the promoter can make enough profit from successful shows to cover the losses on the unsuccessful ones or the ones which just breakeven and anyway there's a only a few big shows a year in that particular marginal market and boy the competition's ferocious... And also how nice it is for a promoter when an agent shows interest in how the show is selling by asking for regular ticket counts and maybe even discusses with the promoter what to do if the show isn't selling well and even more radically asks how the show went afterwards - and maybe even expressed a hint of concern if the promoter had lost their shirt/house/job/spouse/venue, and maybe wanted to know why the show had not been a success for the promoter - but of course in the real world all shows are successes for promoters and then last and of course the part of the dream which had least to do with reality was the part where agents would be prepared to admit that they were wrong sometimes - when they'd cocked up the terms of the deal for example, or booked the show with a cowboy and got egg on their face - and even EVEN that the artist was wrong - like when the artist was blind drunk and played an awful set half as long as it was supposed to be, behaved like a total spoilt brat of a wanker, arrived 5 hours late at the gig because the tour manager hadn't bothered to work out the distances between cities and factor in the traffic / processing the carnet / the borders or whatever, or the artist had woken up with a hangover and refused to get on the bus on time or the act's manager had refused to pay for a nightliner with double drivers or whatever the excuse was... And of course there are agents who already have their degree in agency skills - I mean of course to say that all agents already have their degree in agency skills and in fact this school for agents of my dream just isn't needed at all - it's only in this total fantasy which has nothing to do with the real business of booking a show that some agents - an extreme minority - haven't quite yet gotton their degree in agency skills - though even in my dream, all agents do know how to buy and sell - but then so does every trader in Portobello Market... Thank you and goodbye