Finding People To Look Out For You
You’ve probably heard about agents and managers who can get DJs all the best paying and high profile events there are. With their help, a local artist can even break into a higher plain of fame. It sure would be great to have a professional like that backing you up on your music career, but to get highest quality service from one, you need to have something to offer in exchange. Attracting attention from music industry experts isn’t easy. It can take some time to know how the system works and who the main players are.
Agents
These people focus their efforts on organizing the best gigs for their clients. In exchange, they demand a percentage of the pay you receive as a result, usually around 20%. Therefore, successful agents pursue the career of their clients as they would their own. Their main advantages are good networking skills and a huge list of relevant contacts. You could even say that when you’re hiring an agent, that’s what you’re buying.
As for the hiring process itself, it can get complicated. Seeing as agents charge no upfront fees and only work for the cut of your profits, they limit their time and attention to only the best candidates, hoping that their investment will pay off. Established agents like to think they have a keen eye for talent, but in most cases, the talent must put in effort of their own to be noticed. That’s only fair, as no agent would like to represent a weak and passive DJ.
Most agents don’t take the risk of cultivating your career from scratch, so it’s your job to get your name out there. Once it’s out, an agent will find you. When you’ve signed a contract with an agent, it’s no time to relax. You need to provide them with everything they might need to successfully ‘sell’ you to the venues and companies out there. Cooperation is the key, as you will have to do everything as your agent tells you for their services to be effective.
Managers
These are the supervisors of your career, making sure that you do what you have to do at certain stages of your music career. They know more about your future goals and direction than you do. Some of them act as agents, and their functions boil down to planning your events, releases and some marketing initiatives. Obviously, they get a cut of your revenue, around 20% on average.
Publicists
Who exactly are publicists? Their main goal is to raise the public’s awareness of a DJ’s name. They'll send your latest tracks to be rated by the music industry’s top publications. Publicists will also find ways for you to score a couple of interviews, photo shoots and other kinds of promotion you might have attempted on your own. They work on a whole different level, though, and chances are that their services will give your DJ career the much needed boost. They also have flexible fees, which vary from one artist to another.
Legal experts
You might not have bothered yourself with thinking about getting their support, but the higher a DJ gets in the music industry, the higher the stakes become. You can no longer afford to overlook some tiny details in your contracts with venues, club owners, music distributors, promoters, even your own agents and managers. Everything needs to be accounted for and only a qualified legal expert can handle it.
Judging by all these professions and their tendency to require high fees, it seems that a DJ’s success attracts a bunch of high-paid people who offer to do something you had already been doing in the past, like promoting yourself and planning your future events.
However, it’s important to remember that the scale at which you will operate once your music career really takes off requires much more targeted effort on each aspect of your work as a DJ, and only specialized people can do that. Make good music and leave it for the pros to handle.