Talent agents, sometimes called booking agents, seek employment for
their clients and are regulated by the states in which they do business.
States, many years ago, recognized that talent agents really do have to
be screened and registered.
And there are registration processes for agents in various states.
This is a result of the years of abuse.
Sometimes people involved in criminal activity being talent agents, and
really not accounting for the money that they might have taken on deposit
for a performing act to perform a specific live performance.
It really created problems and states decided that they really needed to
impose regulations to make sure that they screen the people that wanted to
be talent agents, force them to open up an separate escrow account to put
the deposits for the live performances, and that no one could
touch until the act performed the date, at which time, the talent agents
could then take out their commission and pay the balance to the artist.
So they're very heavily regulated in states.
Talent, or booking agents, are in the full-time of procuring employment for
their clients .
In other words, they are soliciting gigs, trying to negotiate gigs,
signing contracts to make sure the talent fulfills the terms of the jobs
that they procure for them.
The agent is a middle person, between the talent and the talent buyer,
sometimes a producer of a television show, a live promoter, a nightclub.
And it's important for that agent to both recognize the value of the
artist, as well as what that talent buyer is willing to pay.
And that's basically what the agent does.
They procure, they solicit that employment for the artist, negotiate
an agreement that brings these two parties together to make money.
The talent agency business is a tough business, but it could be a very
prosperous and good business for you.
Just so long as you comply with the regulations in your state, you could
start your business small.
You can book acts in local clubs, possibly as opening acts
for national acts.
And then you could start booking regionally.
At some point, you might grow into a national agency.
Unlike recording agreements and personal management agreements,
sometimes acts enter into non-exclusive deals with agents.
Clearly, agents don't like these kind of deals.
They want to be the exclusive representative of the talent.
They don't want to have any other agents undercutting the price that
they might offer to a promoter.
But it depends on the leverage of the act.
And I have notes on acts that will only do nonexclusive
deals with many agents.
In other words, saying, to the agents, bring any gigs that you might be able
to procure for me, and I might take it from you and pay a commission.
In the case of an exclusive written talent agency agreement, one of the
provisions might be what is called a key person clause.
A key person clause basically states that there is one person in the agency
that the artist is very close to and is very concerned with them.
The key person call clause said that person leave the agency, then the
talent has the right to terminate the contract.
This provision is very important that the talent agency business in many
times you'll 12c agents leave a particular talent agency and take
their clients with them.
You might find a key person clause also in personal management
agreements, particularly when a personal manager that brought you on
and is really concerned about your career, decides to leave the personal
management company that they're with.
At that point.
If you have a key person clause that enables the act to get out of the
contract with that management agency and possibly follow the manager to a
new company.