BIGSOUND: Eleanor McGuinness

Business: Pitch & Smith Agency

Position/Title: Agent

How did you first become involved in the music business? I volunteered to work on a weekly acoustic club night and after six months I was offered a full-time job with one of the major promoters in Ireland.

What do you perceive to be your area of expertise, and how did you gain experience in this field? Well that's easy, live bookings would be my area of expertise. I gained a lot of my experience for the first years in the industry as a promoter which allowed me to see the process of bookings from both sides and helped me move into the area/position of agent. It gave me a good foundation to work from.

Is this your first BIGSOUND? It most certainly is! And my first trip to Australia, so it's pretty exciting! There's no spiders right?!

What will you be primarily discussing during your appearance at the BIGSOUND conference? Live bookings in Europe. Our agency focuses mostly on the European market so I would like to discover new Australian artists and hopefully work together in bringing them to Europe.

What are you hoping that people will be able to learn from your panel/interview? How Europe operates when it comes to live bookings. There are a lot of different elements that have to be factored in, the various markets and languages, how they differ, taxes involved, logistics and economics.

What are you expecting to take away yourself from your visit to BIGSOUND? Hopefully I'll be working with more Australian artists and have met a bunch of new industry folk that I can do business with in the future. And no spiders.