An Overview of the Live Music Sector and Its Different Jobs

The biggest surprise I encountered during my master’s studies in Global Entertainment and Music Business at Berklee College of Music, Valencia, was that most of my classmates wanted to work in the record industry, or adjacent industries such as publishers or DSPs. Where was the interest in the live music sector, the primary source of income for most of today’s most successful artists? Perhaps this can be attributed to the fact that when you think about the music industry, you first picture the record industry, where the entire business originated historically— many people dream of being A&R executives and finding the next big star. What they aren’t aware of, is the amount of adjacent jobs you can find in the live music industry and the size of it all! In this article, I aim to show why I think you, as a potential future music industry colleague, should consider pivoting to the live sector. 

Let’s begin with the basics. Imagine that your favorite artist wants to go on tour. After discussions with their management and perhaps their label, and a rough draft of the tour route, length, and show capacity, the manager will reach out to a booking agent (the ‘big three’ booking agencies being Creative Artists Agency, United Talent Agency, and Wasserman). This booking agent will communicate with the local concert promoters in every region the artist would like to target. Of course, for many artists, the easiest way is to plan the entire tour with Live Nation or AEG and their local subsidiaries. The promoters communicate with venues and check their availabilities. The venues, together with the promoter and the artist’s tour crew, then finally execute the shows together once they are booked. 

So, you’re probably wondering - can I discover talent in the live sector? The answer is, yes, of course you can, and in so many ways! While there is no direct pendant to an A&R, concert promoters also actively search for new talent to break. Since they often make a large income through the organization of big shows, they can spend their surpluses on creating shows with local artists or bringing selected artists whom they believe into their region, from abroad. To do this, they need to be experts in data analytics and keep an open eye and ear. Booking agents also carefully curate which artists they want to have on their roster. 

Another interesting and particularly lucrative area is festivals: as an artistic director, you will get the chance to create a unique lineup, with a wide range of artists. You can collaborate with sponsors and brands to bring their products and your festival to life and add any other non-musical elements to your festival. I like to think of festival organizers as architects - they have to think everything through, from the festival layout to logistics, crowd management, weather conditions, traffic, health and security, camping… 

For the really brave ones, another option is to go into the artist’s tour management side and plan a tour from scratch. Most of the responsibilities will lie on you, and you may be on the road for several months in a row. Certainly not a boring corporate job!

One element which, in my opinion, truly makes the live sector stand out and significantly increases job satisfaction, is the proximity to artists and the hands-on experience you get through show days and tours. How many times when working in the record industry will you meet the artists you work with, especially at an entry-level position? From personal experience, I can tell you that this will be fairly easy in the live sector. Before I began my master’s degree at Berklee, I was an intern at a concert promoter in Berlin. On the third day of my internship, I was told to drive the country artist whose show we were organizing to a beer tasting. That same week, I was invited to an album listening party at Sony Music, for a German electronic music artist whose tour we were planning. When I met him again at his show at the Uber Arena in Berlin (yes, I had an Access All Areas pass!), he remembered my name. When we organized Cat Stevens’ show in Berlin, our production office was right across his dressing room, and he observed us through his window. Not to mention the amount of shows I got to attend for free. As someone whose main hobby is attending concerts, it was an absolute dream come true, and the goosebumps were present every single time. 

These are some of the many reasons why I would strongly recommend considering job opportunities in the live music sector. The experiences I have had were undeniably challenging, but also extremely rewarding. Nothing compares to the joy you feel when you look at a crowd of happy faces enjoying the music. 

If you have any further questions, please feel free to get in touch with me via email or LinkedIn: anna.nikoltchev@gmail.com 

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