Panel: Agency Business: The Pressure Cooker

CHAIR: Chloé Abrahams-Duperry, AXS

A booking agent’s job is a complex mixture of juggling relationships, deadlines, and expectations in a role that is broadening beyond booking and dealmaking. And mixing in services from tour marketing to market intelligence, and the rise of festival departments, and territory specialists the modern booking agency is being reshaped.

So what does that mean for those trying to do business with it? Four leading agents discuss how their roles are changing, the tools and systems helping them handle a growing workload, what makes a festival pitch cut through, where communication commonly breaks down, and how promoters and festival bookers can build more effective relationships with increasingly time-poor agents.