Good Agents. Are There Any?

Agents for musicians have been around in real life for quite some time and have been in Second Life ™ for a while now. An agent can be very valuable to a performer. Agents, while looked at as someone who books artists shows, can promote and manage the artist in a number of ways. Since an agent charges fees for their service, artists should ensure their agent will accomplish what they would like them to. An agent can be a valuable tool to an artist’s career in terms of promotion and trade marking the artist’s name.

As I have run a nightclub in Second Life ™ for quite some time now, I’ve dealt with a number of agents and artists. Unfortunately my opinion of Second Life ™ agents is not very high. I find that most of them think their job is simply to book shows and maybe send a staff member to an event to promote the artist by chatting their website and info on joining their group. While these two things are crucial, there is so much more an agent and their staff can do to promote artists in Second Life ™. I realize that this is a lot of work and if an agent is by themselves, probably not feasible. But if you take being an agent seriously, you’d factor that into the fees you charge and hire enough staff to accomplish everything.

Following are tasks I think every agent should be doing and every artist should ensure their agent does:

Event Notices (Agents seldom if ever post event notices)
An agent should post event notices for a performer’s show. All too often only the venue posts event notices. Event notices are crucial in attracting people to an event and certainly more notices would garner more exposure. With a limitation of five per day per person, venues are limited. With that limitation, agents as well are limited as they would be posting for numerous events throughout a day. However having other staff members post notices would alleviate the situation. As well, the agent needs to post only one per show, more if possible. Since notices can be posted well in advance, agents can do all their posting at once for an entire week, month or any period they choose.

SLX Notices (Agents seldom if ever post SLX notices)
SLX has a forum to promote events in Second Life ™. Some venue owners utilize this forum. It’s free and you can post a limitless number of times. An agent should use the SLX forums to promote all their client’s events.

Website/Blog (Agents seldom manage websites/blogs)
Every Second Life artist should have a website or a blog. While websites can be costly, blogs are free and relatively easy to set up and use. Blogs keep fans informed and provide information on the artist. As well, a schedule of the artist’s shows can be included and this is valuable to fans who may want to plan to see the artist. Agents should ensure that an artist has a website or a blog and that it not only includes a schedule of their events, but that the information on the blog is up to date. There is nothing more annoying that going to a blog/website and finding the info outdated or even worse, very little information at all. An agent may not manage the website/blog directly, but should ensure an artist has one and that the appropriate information is contained in it.

Artist’s Groups (Agents do some)
Each artist should have a group for their fans to join and to keep up to date on in world happenings with the artist. Most performers do. A group is valuable because it allows direct communication to its members. Notices can be sent to all members informing them of upcoming shows or any other info the artist or agent would like them to have. As well, group im’s can be sent directly to the entire group. Management of an artist’s group should not be left to the artist, but rather should be the responsibility of the agent.

Staffing/Attendance at in world events (Agents do often)
As I said earlier, an agent should employ enough staff to accomplish the work that needs to be done to promote their clients. Good staff is valuable and can go a long way to helping an agent and the artists succeed. In addition to having staff perform the above tasks, a good agent will send people to in world events to help promote the artist to those in attendance, invite people to join the artist’s group, inform those in attendance of upcoming shows and to promote the artists website/blog. In addition, any staff sent by the agent to a show will help in populating the venue. There is nothing worse that teleporting to a venue and finding the place empty or having only venue staff on site. Having random staff members attend events alleviates this.

Classifieds (Agents never do)
In world classified ads are probably not as effective as other types of in world marketing. However, they do have some effect. Spending a lot of money on classifieds is not usually an option so a simple 50L classified ad can bolster the other forms of marketing an agent does. A classified ad with the performer’s picture, a brief bio and a list of upcoming shows would be helpful. The nice thing about classified ads is that they can be modified and updated whenever you like. Again having a staff member do the ads and modifying them would be the way to go.

Confirmations (Some do, some don't)
When we book a performer for our club, we always sent a confirmation via notecard to the agent or performer. All details including location, date, time and rate are included so that there is no disagreement later on. Sometimes we get a confirmation from the agent, sometimes we don't. We also send a note or im to the agent and performer close to the actual time of the performance as a reminder. We don't always get an acknowledgement of this. Agents should be confirming with the venue, just to ease the venue owner's mind that the performer hasn't forgotten and is still coming. A few times we've had a performer not show up for the event and weren't sure if they had problems or simply forgot about it. An good agent will confirm with the venue and the performer on the same day as the event.

I haven’t’ seen many agents do most of the above but if they really want to portray themselves as agents then they must do what they can to promote their clients. A successful artist means a successful agent. All too often, I find the agent’s I’ve dealt with to be disorganized and seldom doing much to promote their clients (artists), customers (venues) or themselves. A good working relationship between all three is a key to success in Second Life ™.