(Kids) Musicians Who Need (Kids) Musicians: Booking Agents

In this episode of our sporadically popular "Readers Who Need Readers" series, I'm reprinting a portion of a recent e-mail from a kids musician who shall remain nameless...

Well, Stefan, how come I can't find a professional booking agent? Apparently I am at this weird professional juncture where I am now earning a healthy living and too busy and successful with shows and production projects to have any more time to actively BOOK my own shows (that seems good), but NOT quite successful enough to attract a professional booking agent (that seems bad). So apparently I am not such The Man after all.

Admittedly, the extent of my booking agent search was to send a single unsolicited e-mail to nine booking agents I found online who represent other family musicians (and it was actually even hard to find NINE real agents in this business...), but thus far my "Yes, I would love to book [X]" response rate of precisely 0% is rather uninspiring... If you have any pearls of wisdom from your experience in this business... BRING IT ON PLEASE!

Well, my specific pearls of wisdom (such as they were, and hardly meriting the all-caps of "BRING IT ON") would tip off who the artist is, but I'm opening this up to other artists out there. Thoughts about ways to find a booking agent? A booking agent you'd recommend? This does strike me as a trickier genre for booking than traditional rock music, a niche, no doubt.

And don't forget about Kindiefest.com -- there's another community that may be of help. (But entering responses here will also help folks who come searching for this info in months and years to come...)

Comments

[Danny Adamson]

Great question! I'd love to hear/know more about booking agents that work with children's performers. I'm guessing, just like anything else, they'd need or want to see some potential in your act to take you on as a client. Yes, booking agents probably like pulling in 10% from all of their clients, but I imagine a load of 10 clients all demanding results could be scary, unless they have decent potential. Hmmm, I wonder if my band has potential???

[anonynous]

I am in the EXACT same situation Very frustrating.