What if I told you that while your last show "lost money on paper," the promoter walked away with enough profit to fund their fancy London office?
In 2016, I had dinner with an executive from one of the UK's most successful live promotion companies.
He was one of the music business "nice guys."
The kind you trust.
We met at an expensive restaurant, minutes from their big fancy London office - all paid for by his company.
They wanted to secure all live promotion for my roster of artists.
I was already planning to cut promoters out entirely, but I was curious what they had to say.
What he told me cemented my decision.
And frankly, shocked me.
After the usual pleasantries, he dropped a bombshell.
His company was prepared to pay me 50% of the booking fees they collected on my artists' shows as my personal kickback.
Extra profit for me, while my artists saw nothing.
I dug deeper into this "game."
He told me it was so lucrative that the meal we were eating was funded by booking fees.
The fancy office? Booking fees.
Their entire staff? Booking fees.
Plus they make substantial profit before taking their standard 20% cut of show profits.
"Often when a show loses money on paper, we actually make a profit when you factor in booking fees," he said with a grin.
The artist loses money despite their small guarantee not covering overhead costs.
Meanwhile, the promoter sits there staring at their bank account, smiling.
These fees can be more than 20% of the ticket price.
Let me put this in perspective - on one tour, after we decided to take control of our own shows and promote them ourselves we generated $100K just from booking fees alone.
That covered our entire marketing budget to sell out the tour.
We didn't have to spend a dime of actual ticket sales on promotion, meaning both we and the artist made significantly more money.
But here's the disgusting truth: in the traditional system, that $100K would have gone straight into the promoter's pocket.
The artist who created the demand, who brought the fans, who delivered the performance?
They get nothing from these fees.
Meanwhile, fans are furious about being charged booking fees on top of ticket prices.
Artists are fed up with being excluded from this revenue stream.
Unless you're a huge artist with negotiating power - then you're in on the kickbacks, or your management is.
This is exactly the kind of unethical, unfair business practice that makes the music industry broken for artists.
Yes, everyone needs to make profit - that's how business works.
But these profits should be distributed fairly.
Why do these fees even exist separately from the ticket price?
Because if they were just part of the ticket, promoters couldn't make tons of profit even when shows "lose money on paper."
After that dinner, I decided I would never work with a traditional promoter again.
Instead I went ahead and built our own promotion team and ticketing platform, sharing any booking fees generated with our artists.
The result?
Artists making real money while fans get transparency.
It's time for a different way.
Artists are fed up with booking fees.
Fans are fed up with booking fees.
Everyone except the promoters and ticketing platforms are fed up.
On September 10th in Mexico City, I'm revealing exactly how we're going to change this business forever.
How we're going to eliminate the middlemen who profit from artists' work without adding real value.
How we're going to create transparent revenue sharing that benefits creators and fans.
Here is the link to register and find out more:
The time to do is now.
Kind Regards
-The Baker
Solving The World's Problems Through Art | #thetimetodoisnow