Artist and product management

Throughout this class, we have all been presented with valuable ideas and information on the artist and product management side of the industry. From creating a career plan for your artist, to setting up an event with an artist, we have all gained a good chunk of knowledge that will prove useful in our future careers.

These are some things I have put a lot of thought into and believe will help me in my future:

1.     Make sure to research the artist you are interested in managing. Get to know there past history, such as successes and failures. Also research their life in the past to get a feel for the type of person they are. You don’t want to manage someone who has had more failures than successes in their past, especially if they are a lazy artist that just wants success to be handed to them. You want the hard working artists that have at least got some success on their own.

2.     When creating a marketing plan for your artist, think outside the box. This does not just apply to marketing either; this can apply to your all around career plan for your artist. There are plenty of ways to make money especially if your artist is successful, coming out with a headphone line or a vodka company with your artists name or face on it can bring in the big bucks, and get your artist more exposure.

3.     Through my interview this month I learned that you might want to start with managing events, networking, and eventually coming to artist management. I believe by starting with something like events you get the opportunity to meet club/venue owners, artists, and other important people in the industry. Then when your name has grown and you have plenty of contacts, you may be able to start taking on artists careers and developing them. Who you know is very important.

4.     Have all legal contracts drawn up by an entertainment lawyer. A good idea may be to write up a rough draft of what both parties want in the management contract, then brining this to a lawyer to have a legal document drawn up with the terms that the artist and manager negotiated.

This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as artist management. But with the knowledge gained from all the assignments and reading this month, I feel ready to start working for an event management company, such as Exact Entertainment Group, the company that I had a chance to interview.