For our latest episode of Speaker Cone, Cone TV caught up Matthew Johnson from The Pool DJ booking agency, to talk about the role of a booking agency in the music industry.
These past few months have been a rocky period for Elastic Artists booking agency, and with technology enabling startups easier than ever, it’s become all the more important for agencies to hone in on their skills ever more.
“You can do everything through your computer and it wasn’t like that when I started”.
The birth of digital downloading, streaming and piracy erupted the foundations of the music industry, and since then it’s been live performances that are the life blood for any artist. The role of a booking agent is to get their represented artist those gigs. It’s a very personal industry where the agent will be managing an artists whole live career. As such they need to take a great interest in their lives as much as their job.
Matthew from The Pool Agency represents an impressive roster of artists including MR. Ties, Bill Brewster, DJ Harvey, Todd Terje and Young Marco. His roster is off the back of an insatiable passion for music, and years of exposure in the industry meeting the right people. Matthew tells me, “I was always taught from early on. Get your blackbook. Put everyone in there”. Contacts like any industry is key for an agent, and Matthew who used to work for Nuphonic can draw upon an impressive pool of people. It’s this reason that gives the longstanding agencies that edge over the younger bucks. And at a higher level, it is almost essential to have a good booking agent on board to get the DJ to the big gigs and festivals.
As part of our series looking at the many facets of the music industry, sit back, grab a coffee and watch our episode on the role of a booking agent below…
Click here to visit The Pool official website.