Dear Alma, My agent is an a–hole
Daily Comfort ZoneFrom our agony aunt’s mailbag:
Dear Alma
My agent is an a-hole.
Not only does he clip 15 percent off events that I organise myself, but he inserts his other artists into my programmes with barely a please or thank you.
He’s also very huggy-kissy, which I loathe.
The worst is this. I won a major award a few months back. It came with a ten grand ‘career development grant’. He’s taken 15 per of that, too.
I ought to leave him, I know. But I’m a niche performer on an esoteric instrument and major agencies won’t give me time of day. My girlfriend has offered to give up her work as a box-office manager to represent me and a couple of friends. That’s sweet of her, but she has no experience and I don’t want to wreck our home life.
What do you think, Alma?
Clipped Artist
Dear Clipped Artist,
I know what you mean. You do all the hard work, this guy just sits around calling the shots and taking your money, even for things you did completely on your own.
I have had many managers, some good, some bad. It’s a delicate relationship. And, as you know, it’s very difficult to obtain and retain a manager. Although it seems unfair, the practice of taking commission for ALL activities is the standard. Your manager is not only working to get specific dates for you, he is advertising you on his website, at conferences, and spreading word through his other artists. He is organizing photo shoots, designing press materials, getting reviews and interviews, helping you to design programs that are enticing for presenters, which is the reason he is surprising you with guests. You play a niche instrument, and this keeps your manager on his toes, making more work for him, most likely, than other standard artists on his roster.
Not to mention all of the contracts, booking, details (travel, hotel) that he does – if you have ever done this kind of work before (the work between nailing down the gig and getting to the stage with a check in the bank) you will know how tedious and time-consuming it all is.
So, by association, ALL of your activites are due to him. You got the award because you are awesome, but also because you have the concert calendar and reviews to back up an award. They carefully look at a person’s concerts and history before giving an award like yours, and your manager got those dates for you.
Also – 15% is pretty good. Standard is 20%, and many these days also take a monthly retainer!! I once had a manager that I really couldn’t stand – he even charged me rent for keeping my recordings and publicity materials in his office. I was seething.
And seething you must do. Very few artists are lucky to find a non seethe-worthy manager.
The other things you mention, surprise guests, yucky hugging, you can try to work with. Nip it in the bud and make a planning meeting with programs and guests you would like to work with. Talk to someone else in the office and get advice about the physicality issue – let them approach and deal with it on their own turf.
Your girlfriend? If she wants to be more involved, have her take some marketing and managerial classes and see how she likes those. If she does, then a summer internship and go from there.
Clipped Artist – no matter how much we think we can do it in our own, it takes a village to create and maintain a performance career. I know you can find a way through the brambles.
Questions for Alma? Please put them in the comments section or send to [email protected]
This person could change his life by adopting an attitude of gratitude. Complaining and building a case against someone is very destructive in all aspects of life.
This person could change his life by adopting an attitude of empathy..
Snarking and making judgy comments about someone is very destructive in all aspects of life
Managers answer the telephone and negotiate fees. Yuja Wang doesn’t need to be sold. Her name is sufficient. For everybody else, if a manager actually succeeds in selling you to a presenter that would not otherwise have booked you, he is entitled to a commission on all of your work and will work harder even if he doesn’t land the gig, which should happen often. Managers are often afraid to make a call because they are afraid of being told “no” and diminishing their power. To that problem I have no answer.
I am part of the management team at a German opera house. I can’t say that 20% is standard – the singers we sign usually owe 10–12% to their agencies (in Germany, this is split 50/50 between theatre and artist). Rarely do we see 15%, let alone 20%.
In my humble opinion, a kind of progressive commission structure would make a lot more sense: 10% for the first €25,000, then 15% for the next €25,000, and 20% above that.
20% for everything is simply daylight robbery.
In the States, 20% is often the case.
This is true. And common to even have a monthly fee on top of that.
Does it being “often the case” make it any less of a robbery? Artists will also have to pay taxes and social security on top of all that, right?
Agencies should feel free to negotiate better fees; then their reasonable 10-15% commission will also feel substantially more worthwhile 😉
In the U.S., classical management firms do have informal progressive commission structures, but they work in reverse: the higher-paid artists often pay the lowest commission percentage, because they have bargaining power and because even at 10% (or less), they’re still bringing in the bulk of a firm’s commission revenues. Also, the work of launching a young artist’s career requires such a great investment of time and effort that their managers absolutely earn the higher commissions.
In any event, it’s much cheaper than Hollywood, where one’s manager takes 20%, one’s agent takes 10%, and one’s publicist costs more still.
20% tends to be reserved for instrumentalists or sometimes for conductors’ concert work. An opera contract will attract lower rates, as only one fee needs to be negotiated, repertoire discussions are negligible compared to a solo recital, only one contract needs to be checked, visa, flights etc.
The other thing I would say is that often the lines are blurry about who got the gig, and it wastes time for everyone if artist and manager negotiate over every engagement. Sadly, there are lots of promoters who like to give good news directly to an artist. Even if the manager has been in touch plenty of times, there is many a GMD or festival director who will Facebook message artists directly.
The commissioning of award money, however, (even more when given for career development) is highly unethical, and I would suspect in contravention to codes of practice by at least some management bodies.
I’m wondering how ridiculous is it to give advice to any instrumentalist whom you do not know, do not know where he/she lives, do not know the ‘esoteric’ instrument (is it a sitar, pipa, erhu . . .), do not know the basis on which he won the £10,000 nor what concerts he has given where the agent has “inserted other artists” into “your” programmes, nor what type of programmes these were. Take advice from other artists who play your instruments and at your concerts, not an agony aunt!