How as a Manager I could make more than the Artists themselves. And Why I chose not to.

I was an Artist Manager and Event Organizer from 2016-2019. I had my own startup and had created a strong community of artists both locally in Jaipur, India as well as nationally. Working mostly with musicians, but also organizing events and tours for multimedia artists, dancers, standup comics and more.

From the beginning, I was told art/music was a difficult field to enter and stay alive in.  And I had set out to prove them wrong. I succeeded to a certain extent. Doing 10 shows a week. Working with over 200+ artists. Getting calls for collaboration from festivals and artists of all kinds.

But there was a nagging feeling that are the artists being served in all of this? Every time I met with an artist they faced a financial crunch and I couldn't understand why. Then an incident happened which opened my eyes to the discrepancy.

In December of 2018, I got a call for assigning a band for a Christmas celebration. The budget was 50k and they wanted a high energy, pop and rock band. I shared the details of a few bands from my roster. And they really liked one and booked the band.

The band was a bunch of fresh out college students. 4 to be precise. Filled with raw energy but lacked any sense of Business or Market. My deal with them was for 3k per person since they were new and inexperienced. That is I could hire the whole band for 12k. I recognized that their music was good. Excellent even, but they were clueless about their own work.

Doing the math, I was making 38k of a deal for my Brand and Logistics. Whereas, the artists were earning a meager 3k per person for doing all the hard work of Performing their art! Manager - 38k, Artist - 12k!!

And right there I saw the Problem. The artists' lack of understanding of their own value and simple business/financial concepts. Their unwillingness to discuss money and business for their own gain. And this opens up a huge opportunity for others to take advantage of their work.

My conscience couldn't agree with this disparity and I only took a 15% commission and shared the rest with the band, as they deserved. But couldn't help wonder what if it wasn't me and someone else? Who might be greedy about it? Artists can never Rise if this keeps happening to them and the only way to solve this is to empower and educate the artists themselves about business.

So that's why I started working as a Business Coach to them, trying to teach and help them through their journey and really take up their passion and make it into a profession.

Art really is what creates this world a wonderful place to live in and Artists are the torchbearers.

P.S. - I share most of my thoughts on twitter. Give me a follow if you'd like to stay connected.

P.P.S. - Feel free to DM me if you'd like my help on your business or art.