Live Music 101 #3 – Why Concert Promoters Matter – Matt Brennan and Emma Webster

In the third of our series on the theories that underpin our research into live music, Matt Brennan and Emma Webster attempt to define the promoter and how they operate, in an extract from ‘Why Concert Promoters Matter’, originally published in Scottish Music Review in 2011. The authors analyse existing accounts of live music promoters and offer their own analysis of what a promoter is and does, concluding that promoters may use one or more of three basic models of promotion within rock and pop: ‘independent’, ‘artist-affiliated’, and ‘venue’.  

Hidden revenues in playing ‘unsigned stages’ on the festival circuit – Matt Brennan

Music festival season for young, inexperienced, and unsigned artists, can be a time spent anxiously waiting to see whether they are one of the chosen few selected to perform on the ‘unsigned stages’ that are present at most major festivals in the country.

Less well known than the much-touted exposure that they can bring an unsigned band is the introduction that they bring to the PRS whose collection of revenues from events like festivals is hotly disputed by promoters. Here, Matt Brennan discusses the implications and advantages for unsigned bands of a relationship with the agency.