The Glossary: Artist Manager at This Is Music Ltd | Simon Gold

What does an Artist Manager do?

Artist managers act as a central hub for every part of an artist's business. They work collaboratively with a musician to help achieve the artist's goals by navigating opportunities that arise from their music. 

What makes a great Artist Manager?

Everything stems from the music, therefore a great artist manager needs to have a good set of ears on them as well as being able to put personal taste aside and listen subjectively. Also multitasking goes with the territory of artist management, so one needs to be able to work on lots of things at the same time. Beyond that, a great artist manager is able to take an artist's vision and plan in the short, medium and long term to make them a reality.

What are the basic professional requirements for a successful Artist Manager?

Basic requirements are people and communication skills as well as being able to problem solve effectively and work with a huge range of people doing all sorts of different things. 

What are the common misconceptions about the role of an Artist Manager?

A common misconception is that an artist manager books the gigs. When the truth is that it's the booking agents who are the ones who actually do the bookings. Artist managers work with them and assign time periods to the different agents territories and work collaboratively to create tours without actually being the ones to book the individual shows.