The Power Of Negotiation & Other Lessons From Face The Music's Artist Management Panel

Accompanying a successful artist backstage to festivals and TV show appearances, being the first to hear new songs and watching them grow can seem like one of the coolest parts of the music industry, but as we learned from Face The Music's Idiosyncrasies Of Artist Management panel, it's not all fun and games.

Facilitated by Catherine Haridy, panelists Tkay Maidza and her manager Craig Lock (Four Five Entertainment), Japanese Wallpaper and his manager Will Evans (Zero Through Nine) and Totally Mild's Elizabeth Mitchell and Lorrae McKenna (ex-Remote Control), having recently started their artist-manager relationship, talk us through some of the most important artist management advice they would give.

Negotiate well

"We negotiated a record deal that included international travel for me to investigate overseas. I was able to get booking agents in the UK and US before we'd even been there." — Craig

Negotiate really well

"The way to get the best deal with a label is to do heaps on your own — you want them to believe you'll be something of value. The ideal scenario is to have multiple label offers so you can negotiate between them." — Craig

Act like water

"Stay relatively liquid and be open to situations. Being able to change what we do in reacting to new situations [has really helped Gab Strum and I]." — Will

Lawyers are your friend

"The best piece of advice is get a lawyer and get them to look at any contracts, you can have music lawyers that stop you from getting into a bad deal." — Craig

Be wary of advances

"Artists need to be aware of recoupable costs. When you get huge advances you need to pay it back before you make any money ... Taking a $50,000 advance is a huge risk." — Lorrae

Degrees aren't useless

"I don't think it's essential to have a degree but it doesn't hurt; artist management is a tough and small industry and there's no guarantee ... If it doesn't work you can always go work at Telstra or something." — Craig

know your limits

"You need to have a minimum commitment on a deal. Sometimes they say there's a maximum amount of $100,000 on marketing, for example, but if they don't give you a minimum, then they can spend nothing on marketing." — Craig