College Talent Buyers As Gateway To The Industry
Moderator
Barbara Hubbard | ACTS
Matthew Blake | CAA
Meredith Craig | United Spirit Arena
Michael Lorick | Tour Accountant
Sam Rogers | Apregan Group
Jake Schneider | Madison House
David Swift | Pala Casino
Sara Winter | The Messina Group
It can be refreshing to see that no matter what else happens in the business – mergers, buyouts, flops, layoffs, whatever – some things never change.
“I feel as a college talent buyer, that agents give us these ‘college prices,’ which are high,” one audience member lamented to the panelists. “Is this just the standard of the industry?”
“Hasn’t changed, not going to change,” interrupted panel moderator and industry mainstay Barbara Hubbard. “They think we’ve got money, honey, so they’re going to come after it. And I don’t blame him [fellow panelist CAA’s Matt Blake].
“I’ve learned one thing in the business, and it’s you’ve got to say pass if you can’t do it. Be smart, because you’ve got to live another day to make another offer,” the matron saint of New Mexico State University added.
“No act is going to make or break your season,” added David Swift from the San Diego area’s Pala Casino, who acknowledged he faces a similar premium as a casino buyer. “When I was working at Coors Amphitheatre there was always that one act that we had to get or we’re going to lose all our sponsorships! We didn’t do the act one year – and we didn’t have any trouble getting the cor-porate sponsors the next year.”
In response to a student struggling with turning a profit on a tight budget, Madison House’s Jake Schneider let his guard down somewhat as an agent to offer some encouragement.
“Agents need college buyers. We need college kids to go to our shows. Set up deal structures that are fair for you, the university and the clients. Colleges are great gigs.”
Another constant is the battle between talent buyers and athletic departments that often share venues.
“A lot of the success circles around your communication with the athletic directors and boards, because it’s hard enough to even get available dates to hold or to get agents to hold, and you have to block one semester or two semesters in advance for athletic tenants,” said Sam Rogers of The Apregan Group. “To get that low-rent deal they need to understand how this business works. Give them some insights to somehow entice these agents.”
Hubbard said one of the best ways to do that is to throw out the word “recruitment,” because putting on good shows is great PR for a school and its athletics program.
And, in her opinion, the stu-dents are what matter most any-way, to “give them the opportunity to stay on campus and work, in-stead of going to Wendy’s or McDonald’s for a job,” Hubbard said.
And internships, thanks to people like Hubbard and her ACTS Scholarship, are a big part of getting there.
“Those of you sitting out there that are young professionals and you know what you want to do and you’re in a program for some type of event coordination or facility management, you’re already heads and tails above people who have been doing this for years, because programs just haven’t existed.” said Texas Tech’s Meredith Craig.
Michael Lorick, who was a student at New Mexico State and is now a tour accountant for Bruce Springsteen, said the hands-on experience of internships is inval-uable and was ultimately a big reason he got into the business.
“Try to make the most of the practical experience, and couple the book knowledge with the real experience you get in these pro-grams,” Lorick said.
The Messina Group’s Sara Winter acknowledges that all internships aren’t as hands-on as Hubbard’s, and she would know because she has her interns doing “very mundane things.”
However, “I can tell you that the names that I remember, the people that stick out to me, are the ones that came to me outside of the mundane tasks that I was giving them,” said Winter, who now is doing tour marketing for Taylor Swift. “So really, whenever you’re taking these internships, you basically get out of it what you put in.”
|Ryan Borba|