Concert Promoters:

So far we have ventured into the world of the Jamband music industry by examining the roles of booking agents, publicists, band managers, and last month, film supervision. This month we are going to examine one of the more visible groups of people within the Jamband scene, the concert promoter. Concert promoters can run the gamut from multi-million dollar corporations that dominate entire geographic regions to the local college student who throws gigs in his basement for $100.

A few months ago I had the pleasure of speaking with Michael Jaworek, who is a concert promoter in the Washington DC area. His territory reaches from Baltimore, MD through Fairfax, VA and his career has spanned thirty years. He jokes that he has promoted shows for both Elvises. I asked him about his role as a concert promoter, and how he got involved.

"So you want to be a concert promoter? First, take $20,000 and go into the bathroom. Take handfuls of the money and flush it down the toilet. When you are out of money, go back and get $20,000 more and repeat. If when you're done, you are still smiling and ready to do it again, then you are a concert promoter." I thought that he had made up this joke, but I have heard it numerous times since Michael first told it to me.

The concert promoter is the person who initiates a show; hatches the original idea to produce an event. The promoter contacts all of the parties involved, puts up the investment, and promotes the show. Usually a concert promoter contacts a band and inquires about their availability in the market, then calculates the expenses of putting on a show at that time. They then examine the balance between the expenses and the projected income and attempt to create some possibility of profit for themselves in between.

A good booking agent or manager will have relations with concert promoters all over the country. This lets their clients take advantage of local experts whose knowledge of the resources and complications of a market provides a tremendous advantage. The concert promoter generally stays within a certain territory, forging relationships with media and providers of service, so that they can have all of the necessary resources at the cheapest available price.

Specifically, a concert promoter fronts the money that attracts the talent and pays the initial bills. Other responsibilities include contracting, advertising and promotion, ticket sales, hiring of crews that cover sound, facilities (porta-johns, venue relations, garbage,) security, and staging and lighting. The bigger the event the greater the importance of each of these tasks.

So you see that a concert promoter has to be an organizational wizard. But that is not all- they must also be part soothsayer. The promoter must be able to assess the market and figure out how a particular show will do at the gate, consider the competition, the ever-changing popularity of talent, the reputation of certain venues. They must assess the risk of random elements like weather or local sporting and community events. All of these things must be forecasted to gauge the potential profitability of a show.

Once a promoter decides to promote a show, they must then execute. There are two contradictory priorities constantly at play for the effective concert promoter. The first impulse is to limit the costs of your show. "My first rule of concert promotion is to pay the acts as little as you possibly can…" says Peter, a concert promoter in New Mexico. The theory is that a particular band has a finite draw on any particular night, and no matter how cool the light show is or the quality of the warm up band, you will not particularly effect the attendance of the gate. Thus it becomes the promoter's primary priority to limit the expenses of the show to maximize the potential for profit.

But there is another theory has been adopted by concert promoters in the Jamband market. Bill Graham and others started a trend that encourages promoters to go the extra mile to supply the highest level of entertainment possible to the audience. Whether it is the legendary Grateful Dead New Year's Eve performances, or the Great Northeast Productions annual Phish festivals, or Superfly putting together River Boat shows during Jazz Fest, the notion is that the promoters themselves create an event that is larger than any particular band.

This concept extends past the drawing potential of any particular performer. Components of the show-going experience are expanded and creatively enhanced to bring about fantastic events that extend beyond the performance of the band. Dawg Kingdom Productions in Oregon was an extreme example. They promoted events in which the Dawg Kingdom concept was the real star of the show; they brought elements into the event that went beyond the music. Belly dancing, Jerry Garcia art galleries, props, video, lights, and atmosphere were all as important as which band was playing.

I spoke with a festival promoter this week, someone that is well known for having great festivals, about this balancing of priorirties. He and I were discussing how a recent festival had struggled financially, and he remarked that he could have made a lot more money with the same exact crowd by limiting his expenses. "I could have made $15,000 on this event instead of losing that amount if I had cut my costs. That's enough money to buy a Toyota truck! But that would have negatively effected the experience of going to the festival, and at this point, I feel it is more important to be hosting the highest quality event that I can. Over a period of time, the profit will be greater."

Live music fans depend on concert promoters to initiate the events that they love to attend. With thousands of people headed to Jazz Fest, Jamband fans were stoked to learn of the amazing shows that were being promoted there in association with the festival. Heading to the Oregon Country Fair, festivalgoers have come to expect awesome shows in Eugene to keep the music from stopping all week. We depend on concert promoters to risk their money and reputation and to accept huge liability in order for us to see our favorite music unfold before us.

Concert promoters are the cowboys, the gamblers of the music industry. Their fortunes are won or lost on the strength of a few nights, with their careers and reputations on the line. These people live on this excitement, and when they work at their best, it's the fans and the bands that benefit with them.

Phil Simon

Phil Simon is a booking agent and freelance journalist operating out of Boston. His booking agency is called Planetary Booking ( ) and in the last year he has worked with ulu, Jiggle the Handle, Snake Oil Medicine Show, the David Nelson Band, Max Creek, the Burt Neilson Band, and more. His writing appears monthly at Jambands.com, at Headjams.com and in the innaugural issue of Heads magazine.