Booking Your Entertainment: Internet or Agent?
Booking entertainment used to be cut and dry: You went to booking agents to handle all the entertainment plans. Going directly to the source of entertainment was unheard of – you wouldn’t have even known where to start. Agents had the contacts, and without them, it was impossible to locate or evaluate entertainment, especially big names.
Today it’s a whole new ballgame. Like many other aspects of event planning, booking entertainment has been revolutionized by the Internet. Hundreds of entertainment sources can be located in seconds, and everyone who’s anyone has a website. Yet this hasn’t necessarily made things easier – for planners or booking agents. While the Internet is an invaluable tool for finding entertainment, using it in addition to rather than instead of a booking agent might be your most powerful method of planning.
The Value of Expertise
For one, while you may be able to locate a band on your own, you won’t have the same power of negotiation behind you as a booking agent who’s worked with them before. “Because of the Internet, event planners are often able to locate and have direct contact with artists on their own,” says Anthony Bollotta, president of Bollotta Entertainment, a booking agency and TEAM Net member. Bollotta explains that going through an experienced agent who has already worked with that band offers a great deal of security. Working with an entertainment source directly can be tricky, especially when the planner isn’t familiar with the particular act.
He offers this scenario: “In the entertainment field, in which many artists are hungry for work, the tendency to misrepresent their own talents and abilities is quite strong. A client may ask the bandleader all the right questions, but still be misguided by the leader’s answers. I’ve seen it time and time again: A bandleader will agree to play continuous music before the job, and then tell the client on-site that there will be an extra charge for that service. Or, an ensemble will agree to play a certain style of music they can’t actually play. Or an artist may agree to be at the site at a certain time, only to show up late.”
How can you prevent these problems? Bollotta says that working with an agent, who understands your needs better than an artist and is an expert in handling such situations, can solve and, even better, prevent such problems. While you’re busy juggling multiple elements of the event, an entertainment professional will solely be focused on the entertainment, and can be sure that nothing goes wrong. In addition, an agent will understand the abilities of artists and provide an honest assessment of what they are and are not capable of – and then he or she will hold the artists to it. This way, you can have the best possible act for your event and avoid being confronted with unexpected surprises.
“A qualified, professional booking agency will put all facets of the job in a written contract and stand by that contract,” says Bollotta. “Such items as what the client is buying, times, dates, overtime costs and any other obligations of the artist will all be written up.”
What Saves You Time Saves You Money
Many event planners strongly prefer to use a booking agent even though they know the Internet could lead them directly to the entertainment sources. One major factor seems to be saving time, and since time is money, event planners are willing to shell out a little extra. “It might cost me a little more money up front,” says Annie Revel, CSEP, of Revel Productions. “But in the long run I know it saves me money because it saves me time.”
Booking entertainment through an agent provides Revel with a feeling of security, and she says it takes some of the stress away. “Booking through an experienced agent gives me peace of mind,” she says. “I definitely wouldn’t use the Internet to find entertainment on my own when I have contacts and resources at my fingertips who are experts in booking entertainment.”
Revel says she prefers to let other experts handle their own areas of expertise, and plans events by bringing all of these experts’ talents together and forming a team. “What makes me an expert in event planning is knowing who the experts are,” she says.
Letting the entertainment experts handle the entertainment can certainly be a big relief. It ends up being one less thing to worry about. “When I’m working with a reputable agency, there is security in knowing they won’t send me any musicians or entertainment that isn’t backed by them,” says Taylor Peterson, the events manager for the San Diego Business Journal. “I’m comfortable knowing the musicians will arrive on time, their instruments and equipment will work, they will be professional, and of course, they’ll be guaranteed to be talented!”
Wayne Foster, president of Wayne Foster Entertainment, agrees that companies specializing in entertainment will be able to select the best possible act for the event. Foster says that entertainment professionals offer musical repertoire, appropriateness for the event, and the ability to choose the right musicians and performers for the event.
“There is a difference between a concert band, a nightclub band, a recording studio band and event entertainment,” he says. “A professional entertainment company knows the difference and will place the right music
in the right environment. This expertise could not be utilized by selecting a band off the Internet.”
The Convenience Factor
In addition to security, convenience is another major factor that event planners say working with a professional entertainment booker offers. A professional already has a Rolodex full of contacts and will know right where to start. As a result, things will get moving a lot quicker and ultimately be finished a lot quicker. Having a professional handle the entertainment can save valuable time by eliminating all that research and evaluation time you would have put in.
“Why should event planners use a booking agent instead of booking entertainment themselves?” asks Gil Eagles, executive vice president of Eagles Talent Connection Inc., a speakers and entertainment bureau. “The answer is knowledge and convenience. Our experts provide the busy corporate event planners with our personal knowledge of who would be the best choice as far as a speaker or other corporate entertainment for their particular event. The experts will guide planners based on the type of event, their audience needs and their budget.”
With so much to be taken care of, many event planners appreciate having the entertainment handled by an expert, and out of their hands. “I have never booked entertainment via the Internet,” says Peterson. “I prefer to work though an agent for convenience, reliability and guaranteed quality.”
Hiring Big Name Talent
If you’re looking for big name entertainment, you may not have much of a choice about using a booking agent. Booking celebrities can be difficult without going through the agencies that represent them. “It is easier to get fees, availability and negotiate contracts through an agent when hiring a big name talent,” says Jaime King, marketing coordinator for InVision Communications. InVision has hired many big names through booking agents, including Dana Carvey and Bare Naked Ladies, as well as speakers including Colin Powell, Robert Redford and Bill Clinton.
“I think most big name talents have agents to protect their interests,” she went on to say. “It is much more difficult to book them without using an agency.”
While hiring a professional to handle the entertainment takes a big chunk of the entertainment planning out of your hands, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still be involved. “It is important for event planners to work with entertainment professionals and draw upon their experience with all the elements that go into successful entertainment,” says Foster.
Working together will ensure that you get the exact entertainment you’ve been seeking. Let another expert handle some of the planning, while still having a hand in the major decisions. Bringing in an entertainment professional certainly shouldn’t mean that you relinquish all responsibilities involving the entertainment. After all, it is still your event. Many booking agencies will have a major hand in planning the entertainment, only to remain nameless to the client. And so, in the client’s eyes, you were responsible for the entertainment. Thus, selecting a reputable entertainment booking agency, and having a hand in the planning, is still imperative.
Finding the Right Balance
For their part, booking agencies have a love/hate relationship with the Internet. Despite making entertainment accessible to the public, the Internet has also been very helpful to booking agents by making their own companies more accessible to event planners.
“Through our exposure on the Internet, we have connected with clients who might otherwise never know who we are and what we do,” says Bollotta. “It’s our virtual calling card, enabling potential clients to get to know us and our artists without picking up the phone.”
Eagles agrees that the Internet can be beneficial to the booking industry. “Since we have a good presence on the Internet, it has certainly helped out business,” he says. “The secret is to have a comprehensive, informative site that event planners can use as a resource.”
Eagles Talent’s website features an extensive online directory, which Eagles says is a very popular tool for planners. “The site is designed for the busy planner,” he explains. “In order to make our site convenient and attractive, we have made it very user-friendly with a quick search feature on every page. This enables planners to instantly find a particular speaker or corporate entertainer by name or topic.”
In addition, Eagles points out that the Internet has also sped things up. “Because our website features close to 1,000 video clips of speakers and entertainers, we now snail-mail out far fewer videotapes to planners. Instead, our program consultants can now discuss with the planner
the merits of a certain speaker or entertainer as they watch the video on our site.”
For Bollotta, the Internet has been an invaluable tool for research. “As a national buyer of entertainment, I use the Internet when booking in a city with which I am unfamiliar to gain clarity about what is available in that city,” he says.
Similarly, the Internet is also useful for event planners looking to locate reputable agencies or to do some initial research. “The Internet has made everything much more convenient and easily accessible,”
says Peterson.
The ideal solution seems to be utilizing both the Internet and an entertainment professional. The Internet can certainly still aid the event planner, but not as extensively as an actual professional. Both event planners and entertainment professionals seem to agree that working together is the optimal path toward creating an overall successful event with the perfect selection of entertainment.
“The Internet has created a convenience for both entertainment professionals and planners, but it is still just a first step,” says Foster. “It may help to narrow the field of choices, but there is no substitute for being able to discuss one’s needs with an individual who is experienced in planning events that are memorable, stress-free and fabulous.”