Watch the On-Demand Recording

Key Highlights from the Experts

• What is artist advancing? - 8:00
• What is the role of the booking team in the advance? - 9:40
• How to negotiate with artists from Day 1 - 12:50
• Perks of working with independent promoters - 13:41
• How to structure communications with different artists - 15:04
• How did we survive without Google Drive? - 16:29
• The "good old days" advancing artists with pay-phones - 17:20
• How to make your artist advance mobile friendly - 18:47
• How to automate your artist advance - 19:36
• When to pick up the phone vs send an email - 20:34
• How to navigate "old school" artists when advancing - 23:00
• When is the ideal time to start an advance? - 25:18
• How to communicate with artists - how much is too much? - 26:46
• What items should you include when advancing? - 31:20
• How to incorporate COVID protocols in your advance - 35:35
• What details are the hardest to advance? - 36:17
• Hospitality Must-Haves - 40:30
• Onsite advancing and day of logistics - 41:00
• Hacks to save time advancing onsite - 45:05
• Tips to train new members onsite - 46:35
• Rookie mistakes made onsite - 49:15
• What aspect of the advance would you most like to improve? - 55:00

Quotable Moments

Why Artist Advance Teams ❤️ Google Drive

"I don't know how we ever survived without google drive. In the industry now we have access to so many different tools but this is still my #1. When advancing I need to build a digital storage center for all of the information. It needs to be accessible and easy to share." - Anna Wismer, Founder @ Black Thorn Productions

Why a Mobile Advance 📱is The Future

"Being on both sides of the artist advance, I am trying to craft my advances so they can be done on mobile. I’ve drifted away from excel to collect information because if you can’t be mobile it will take two times as long to respond and get what you need. Imagine a day where you can advance on your apple watch.” -  Alex Bilancia, Artist Relations Manager @ Spring Awakening Festival

How to Communicate 💌 Your Advance to Artists

"I create a series of emails that go in succession and break out the milestones. Once we get the green light for talent it makes it so easy to cut and paste and ensure we don’t miss steps along the way. You have check boxes as you go along to help track what is happening in real-time.” -  Mark Sperling, Founder at Group Y

What's the Ideal Timeframe 📆 to Advance Artists?

"Six to eight weeks before an event is always ideal (but not always realistic). It depends on so many factors. I’d be lying if I didn't say I've advanced a show the day before. To avoid this, I like to send all information at once - and then break it down a bit. I set one deadline but leave flex room for items like guest lists because that always comes last minute. Sometimes due to delays from the artists, sometimes due to other departments—I can’t get that information until a few weeks or days before."  - Alex Bilancia, Artist Relations Manager @ Spring Awakening Festival

How to Communicate Deadlines to Artists So They Take Action ⚡

"Give artists one deadline for everything - you don't know how many deadlines are on their plate or shows they are performing at. The exception here is the- guest list —usually I get this closer to the event and the tools today help to make it more seamless. I try to mix the production advance with the artist relations advance so we have all of the needs in one fell swoop." -- Anna Wismer, Founder @ Black Thorn Productions

What to Include in Your First Email to Artists 👋

"Set all of the expectations in the first email. Bullet and bold what you need right now and then stagger out additional requests knowing there will be delays along the way. You don’t want to overwhelm them off the bat but you want to incorporate smaller asks up front and as you get closer weave in those biggest asks.” -  Mark Sperling, Founder at Group Y

What Items Should You Secure 🔒 First When Advancing

"Transportation, hospitality, dressing rooms, set times, catering. I start with my catering deadline and work backwards. You need to be on base with this because it’s costly if you’re off in your numbers."  - Alex Bilancia, Artist Relations Manager @ Spring Awakening Festival

"Credential numbers and catering numbers are most important to me because we have to pay for those things. Any variability can drastically affect our budgets. We always pad these areas to be safe. Connecting people with security and doubling down here is more important now too." - Anna Wismer, Founder @ Black Thorn Productions

What items are harder to organize in the advance? 💡

"The passoff to production and making sure we are all aligned is a major challenge. It takes up a lot of time—there’s a ton of back and forth between talent management and production. You can try and plan months in advance but so often things come down to 24 hours before—changing car service, set times, travel—you need to leave room for a lot of flexibility.” -  Mark Sperling, Founder at Group Y

How to set your team up for success 💪

“I’m an oversharer with my team. The more information everyone has the more empowered everyone is. Everyone is dependent on the other for success and ensuring everyone has access to the details helps people hold up their own responsibilities.” - Alex Bilancia, Artist Relations Manager @ Spring Awakening Festival

What aspect of the artist advance would you most like to improve? 💯

“Guest lists are always my achilles heel. It’s always changing at the last minute and I never trust the information I see is accurate. We used Lennd at one of our events and it was a life saver to help us update in real-time and make everything more seamless with communication. Less back and forth and allowing us to make the right information accessible to the right teams. Some events I can work with 15 different teams and they don’t all need the same grid.” -  Mark Sperling, Founder at Group Y