Tom’s goal
Whether I’m offering you acts that I think would do well in your venue, or putting together the entire entertainment calendar for your venue, or agreeing to represent your act to buyers, or working with you to put together a concert or a private event or a fair/festival, the first thought needs to be how do I do the best job possible for this client? How do I make them successful?
Meet Tom
I became an agent in 1995. Prior to that I played drums in lots of bands and had lots of jobs that I wasn’t really interested in having. As I drifted in and out of being a full-time musician, I noticed that I was sometimes the only player who seemed to have any aptitude or interest in the organizational side of being in a band. I could talk to agents and bookers, I could keep track of schedules, I could think a few steps ahead and come up with some strategy to move the band along. I became an agent at Starleigh Entertainment and worked there for the next 24 years (except for a brief escape to James Turner Productions in 2007-2008) and as it turned out, I was pretty damn good at the job. Also, I loved it. Still do.
Tom’s Process and Commitments
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Venues
If you are a venue or an event buyer coming to me, you deserve my attention, my curiosity, and my expertise. I need to listen to what you are saying and ask follow-up questions. Then, I need to think about what will give you the best result. I need to offer you the best options available based on your parameters like dates, location, desired audience, and budget. I need to offer you the best options available to you.
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Bands
If you are a band that I’m representing, you deserve an honest evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses, a plan of how to get you where you want to be, and my absolute best efforts to put you in situations that are right for you and will allow you to succeed. I never want to put a performer in a situation that they are not right for. I’m a musician. I have played a lot of shows that left me wondering what the agent was thinking when they put me on that job.
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My promise
Sometimes, I am the agent for the buyer. My job is to serve that buyer’s interests and make sure whatever they buy from me makes them a hero to the people they work for. Other times, I am an agent working to fill a band’s calendar with as many, high-quality bookings as they want. Sometimes those separate parts of my business will dovetail together nicely and make things easy for me. Other times, they won’t. My commitment will always be to put the needs of any client first.