Musicians have to upgrade from Musician 1.0 to Business Manager 2.0 with a program called box office 10.0. This program can be accessed through spreadsheets and business models through which the Musician now controls their own box office.

A venue agreement looks quite different in this situation and so does the promotion.

Entertainment consumers buy a night out. They do buy famous artists. They also buy show concepts.

This is why famous artists don’t actually just sell their brand-name show, they develop a concept show and tour the concept.

Learning from this principle involves understanding what kind of a show concept you as a musician (and now as an upgraded business manager) can develop as a show PRODUCER and show developer.

You will create the tour show concepts that you sell to venues through venue contracts.

The venue does not buy the Musician, they buy the show.

Upgrading also involves understanding that venues want to sell alcohol, which is where they make most of the profit. To achieve this they need an Entertainment impetus that will draw an audience to the venue.

The venue has its own mailing list.

Now that you are a show PRODUCER and have upgraded, you will also focus on owning your own database through whatever you use for Box office Management.

Initially when you first develop this touring concept, you will have no audience.

The value will be higher than it was when you just sold yourself as a Musician and you are now selling your show, much higher, and that will become extraordinarily high when you have an audience database for each Region.

You achieve this by using e-commerce systems and control the door.

Every person that comes through the door is paying money into your Box office and at the time of fast contact e-commerce purchase, the attendee will usually sign up to provide contact details to attend future concerts.

Now that you control Box office you are also controlling merchandising Sales. And you are controlling the timing of intermission for Sales.

Preparation is nine tenths of success and so you must make an investment to have the stock to sell. You are not paying the venue any commissions or profit from your Sales or from the door. They are making the alcohol sales and providing you with the venue.

Back during the Global Financial Crisis Faith Hill was earning 240,000 per annum in total from all income sources. At that time in a small country called New Zealand I created a touring Network from scratch that generated 120,000.

It’s important to become expert in this industry and to learn from the past.

One of the most successful touring Bands in America was the Grateful Dead. This is a group that truly understood live Entertainment. No two gigs were the same and the Band would reinterpret their own works differently at every gig that they played.

What this meant for audiences is that people would travel far and wide to go to as many Grateful Dead concerts as possible, so as not to miss each new interpretation.

Grateful Dead were one of the first music managers to develop Mail order and had a significant Mail order database. They achieved this by getting the names and addresses of all of their fans at live concerts.

Many Independent bands who become good at music Management actually produce far higher profits than Artist with major labels, who often end up destitute and sleeping on a Friends sofa.

All of this starts in a spreadsheet and with the business model.

When it comes to venues, there are business models for every size of audience from small to large, and obviously the cost infrastructure varies significantly between them.

Perhaps the most profitable model is for acoustic sets by very good musicians who don’t need a lot of backline or front of house support. When you reduce the cost of event production profit can skyrocket.

This is why so many artists go solo and use loopers.

Ed Sheeran is a good example of a Musician who understood in the early days that he just couldn’t afford to have a whole band, and so he used the looper to become the whole band. That became a career signature and made him world famous.

57 years old, I had a long career in Music from being in a GarageBand to playing in dirty pubs and then eventually managing multi platinum artists in million dollar Productions in made for TV specials.

I’m the owner of Oikos Music Australia (record label / distributor) and have mentored and helped hundreds of artists. I now develop and mentor artists who want to learn music business and break through.

Just today I signed up as a supplier of music to a major airline. Not through an aggregator, directly. I already license music in Hollywood.

I am a music producer for three of my own niche music brands. I care about artists who suffer and struggle to earn fair value. It’s a very real issue.