Who Plays Where, When and Why: Explaining the Mysteries of Live Music Booking

A crowd watches Doomtree perform at First Avenue. (Nate Ryan/MPR)

The process by which bands are booked into venues is, for the casual music fan, opaque. It may even be mystifying — especially if you just can’t understand why your favorite band is playing your least favorite venue.

Booking, say local pros, is both a science and an art — and like the rest of the music industry, it’s built on relationships. “It’s basically the relationships between the buyer, who would be me,” says Tamsen Preston of Sue McLean & Associates, and booking agents, “who would be the representatives of the artists.”

Most touring bands work with booking agents: people whose job it is to help the artists maximize their financial success on the road while also helping to ensure that the shows are accessible to fans in terms of ticket prices, location, and atmosphere. “We discuss different artists [that agents] represent, what they’re looking for coming through the market,” says Preston. “My job is to try to find the [type of] venue that they’re looking for.”

Booking agents work with local bookers — also known as talent buyers — in each market: people who are in a position to cut a deal for a band to play a particular venue on a particular date for an agreed-upon sum. Many bookers represent venues directly; in other cases, bookers represent promoters (like Sue McLean & Associates) that contract separately with the venues.

Agents, explains Eli Flasher of First Avenue, “will reach out and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got so-and-so band coming through your market on these five dates, this time frame.’ We go back and forth on an offer, and then settle on a date that works for both parties.”

Bad Blood Productions New Site

Janet Archer began her work as a promoter and independent booking agent in 2010, at first using her business Bang Salon in Greenville, South Carolina to host both local bands and artists touring the region. A series of Monday night shows began as “Bang Salon Presents.” When Bang Salon closed in 2011, Janet rebranded as Bad Blood Productions, with inspiration from the work of local artist Tim Speaker.

The musicians that have worked with Bad Blood Productions, especially on the tour circuit, boast a unique connection to Janet unlike other booking agents. Though a Northwest native, in hospitable southern fashion, she looks after the bands not only as musicians but as friends, offering a place to stay or a meal to eat for those passing through a town that might otherwise have not been a touring option.

Janet has, according to We Are The Upstate, brought some “much needed diversity” to the Greenville music scene by drawing from not only regional musicians but bands that call Missouri, New York, or even Germany home. With genres ranging from rockabilly to punk to roots, many in the music scene have hailed Janet as using her passion to benefit musicians and local listeners alike. Bad Blood Productions has enriched the immediate Greenville music scene as well as the larger circuit of the southeast region, particularly North Carolina and Tennessee.

Services provided by Bad Blood Productions:
Tour Booking (US); Available to tour with bands (Merchandise Sales; Tour Manager)

Link over all that is Bad Blood Productions