This can be the year you get the gigs you want, meet the people you want to meet and realize your dreams. In order to do all this, you need to know how to get a booking agent.
Not just any old agent, but one who can match your needs and who understands just how important you are to your industry.
You need someone to represent you. Someone who gets you and wants to help you reach success. They need to be on your side and eager to prove your talents are worthy.
If you are thinking this booking agent sounds amazing, you are right. If you are thinking you could never score a talent agent like this, you are wrong. You have everything it takes to score the greatest agent.
Below are specific actions you can take to land the agent you deserve. After today, you’ll know exactly how to get a booking agent.
How to Get a Booking Agent
Getting agents to help promote you and your brand is an essential part of jump-starting your career. With so many options available, this can seem like a daunting task. Here’s how to get a booking agent this year:
- Build your fan base
- Build your character and create your brand from it
- Always keep learning your skill and the industry
- Learn essential social media skills, or hire someone to do so
- Get into the industry
These first initial steps show you how to get a booking agent to help further your career.
1. Build Your Fan Base
You can be very talented, but you won’t get a booking agent if you have no fan base. It’s important to have some sort of following for an agent to take notice. You need to be selling tickets to your shows. These tickets should go to devoted fans, not family and friends.
The number of followers you have will give your representative an indication of how much money can be made.
To build your fan base, work with a social media manager to get the word out to the millions on the major platforms. The number of fans you have online can positively impact a booking agent’s decision to work with you.
2. Build Positive Character
Focusing on your craft is important. Focusing on your character can increase your chances of getting a booking agent to work with you.
Your brand, whether individual or as a group, has character. It can be good character or bad. That is up to you. Having good character, you will learn, may not always take you to the top on the easiest path. It will, however, help you stay at the top once you get there.
Many artists make the mistake of spending all their free time partying, usually with the wrong people and at the wrong places. What you do in your spare time and who you do it with will eventually become part of your character.
All agents want to work with good people first, good people with talent second.
You have influence. To build positive character, use your influence for good. Volunteer, promote charities, show good will towards others. And don’t do all of this for promotion. Do it because it feels good.
That rewarding feeling you get when you help someone will shine through in your work. And that will get the attention of a good booking agent.
3. Keep Learning
You can never be smart enough or talented enough. There is always room for improvement, new knowledge, or expansion of talents.
There are many opportunities out there for you to continue learning. The more you have to offer, the more agents will take notice.
Take classes to improve your talents. Learn a new instrument, or two. Learn about the masters in this industry. What did they do to make it to the top?
You can even become educated on the life of a booking agent. Knowing what they need, how they need it and why they need it can be extremely beneficial. You will also have a better understanding of the systems and processes of this part of your industry.
4. Social Media Skills
It will totally help you if you can prove you are a social media ninja. From the very first day you enter this industry, you should be taking advantage of the many social media benefits.
Social media is the number one way to advertise and grow your fanbase. It can grow quickly and for very little money, usually no cost. Booking agents like to see you have a following, even if it’s small at first. They want to feel as if you can get people, a.k.a. buyers, to the event.
Booking agents want to feel confident in choosing you to perform. The feedback you receive on social media can help them gain this confidence.
By now you should have at a minimum, a Facebook page where you post live and pre-recorded videos, interact daily with fans, like and share posts of other people, and share a little bit of content with followers.
You should also be posting pictures, videos and messages on social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram and even Pinterest. Posting a tutorial that teaches your followers a new technique, or give them an article on a day in the life of YOU. Sometimes, working with a social media specialist is the best way to do this since you’re time is incredibly valuable and you may not have the time to do this yourself.
5. Be the Intern
There is no better way to learn the industry than to work in the industry. Assist booking agents by completing tasks that will help them put together a great show, even if you are not performing in the show.
Help them before, during and even after an event. The more the booking agent sees you and gets to know you, the more they are likely to think of you when planning their next event.
When you assist them, don’t set out to find every chance for self-promotion. This will leave a negative memory of you in the mind of the agent. Work hard, show up on time and pay attention to what they teach you.
Booking agents are looking for great performers, just like you. Being more than a performer will get you recognized. Be a self-promoter who seizes opportunities. Don’t just wait for the gigs to come along, go find the jobs. If you can’t find the jobs, create them for yourself.
Showing agents you have the skills to get yourself recognized in a crowded field will make them eager to work with you. Booking agents want to assist you in your career. They don’t want to have to do all the work to get you to the top.
Now that you know how to get a booking agent, you can start booking the gigs of your dreams. Show them your talents, and agents will be happy to help you get on stage.
Jason Swartz
Jason Swartz is the President and Founder of Alliance Talent, a world-leader in the entertainment business. Growing up in Los Angeles with a passion for music, he took his local childhood concert business and made in an international concert booking company. Specializing in entertainment booking, social media branding and monetization, and music publishing, Jason was the first to scale social media monetization for the music industry across Facebook. Today, he runs Alliance Talent, a leading entertainment company and concert promoter; focusing on concert bookings, talent representation, brand management, and social media monetization.