Musicians take note. I frequently get approached by new-ish (and established) artists wanting me to be an agent for them. I take on additional artists very rarely, but I always try to have a listen, even if (sometimes) it’s only for a few seconds. If the only link to your music is via Spotify, however, I’m not going to listen to that. At all. Full stop. Have the track on your website, or better still a live video (which can be embedded from youtube easily enough). Don’t try to make me go to a site I hate, which wants me to sign up or sign in before I can listen. I simply won’t do it. You could be the second coming of the Beatles and I’ll never know (or, for that matter, care). If you want someone to listen to your music, make it easy for them. Please.
If you’re going to approach an agent – any agent, not just me – here are some tips:
Have an up to date website with audio, video, a short biog/write-up, a current gig-list, and a great publicity photo (available to download in hi-res). A well-designed downloadable poster won’t hurt either. Make sure your contact details are upfront and obvious.
Don’t just send a weblink to the agent, include why you’re sending it. It might seem obvious to you, but said agent might also book for a venue or a festival.
Show the agent you’re serious about the business. Say in the email if you have a mailing list (and how many are on it). Say if you employ a publicist to do local gig promo (or if you are red hot on doing this for yourself). Say what range of gigs you’ve already done (just local or Cornwall to Scotland). Say how long you’ve been in the business and why you think you need an agent right now.
It might be a polite no-thank-you from the agent, but if they are interested they will ask questions, so make sure you can supply a list of gigs/festivals you’ve done since Lockdown, how much you got paid, and what audience numbers you pulled in for gigs. This is really important. If you only pull 25 audience members, it’s probably not worth signing on to an agency until you’ve built your profile. An agent will charge you (probably) 15% of your gig income and 15% of not-a-lot is not a good business proposition unless you think you have a serious upward trajectory about to happen.
Well, it’s been a year! This time last year I was welcoming Huw Williams and Donnelly & South to the agency and wishing Les Barker a very happy retirement.
Most of you will know that Les, sadly, died in January 2023. He was ill, but no one expected that death was imminent. He went to see his favourite football team, watched them win 7-0 and then collapsed in his car in the car park with his engine and lights already on. It must have been been very sudden. Les didn’t have any family, so his friends and neighbours took care of everything. Finally we were able to say goodbye to him on 1st March at Northop Hall Crematorium, with a celebration of his life, poetry and song in both Welsh and English. I was a pallbearer and conducted the English part of the event. The Mrs Ackroyd band performed along with June Tabor, Savourna Stevenson, Brian Peters and more. Les himself had a word, too as we managed to find a great clip on youtube of him reading one of his own poems. (Used with permission, of course.)
Unfortunately I came home with Covid. My shots were all up to date, but I’m my 98 year old mum’s carer and, of course she caught it, and ended up in hospital with Covid pneumonia and sepsis. Luckily she recovered from both and is still going strong.
And now it’s that time of year when I’m chasing festivals and gigs in 2024 for my artists. Here they are. See http://www.jacey-bedford.com for details.
For more details about any of my artists and their tours please go to http://www.jacey-bedford.com and click on the picture for their individual web pages
NEW TO THE AGENCY THIS SEASON
Huw Williams Formerly the song writing and lead-singing half of the fantastically popular Huw and Tony Williams, Huw is now available solo for folk clubs and festivals. You can also have his one-man-show ‘Birth of an Accidental Musician.’
Donnelly and South Keith Donnelly is now available with the lovely Lauren South. This gives Keith the opportunity to air some of his more serious songs and to play for Lauren’s beautiful singing. Lauren also plays fiddle, guitar and shruti box. “A star-quality act ready to take the folk scene by storm.” – Pete Willow
John Wort Hannam(Canada) John‘s debut UK tour is in May/June 2023. He’s been nominated for (and won) more awards than you can shake a stick at, including Junos (Canada’s Emmys) and I just heard he’s been nominated for the upcoming Canadian Folk Music Awards in the Best Male Vocalist section. A singer/songwriter par excellence, he’s touring with fiddler Scott Duncan.
Robb Johnson Robb will be touring his new album ‘Minimum Wages’ in the autumn of 2022 and spring of 2023. Dates available. Book him now.
Over the Moon (Canada) Craig and Sue toured here in spring 2022 and will be back again in late August to early October 2023. A delightful Canadian Cowboy/Western Swing/ Bluegrassy/Americana duo, they too have been nominated for a Juno Award for their current album ‘Chinook Waltz’ and I just heard today that they’ve been nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award in the Best Group/Ensemble category.
Tania Opland and Mike Freeman(UK/Alaska) Tania and Mike found themselves stuck in Alaska over the various Covid lockdowns, but they’ll be back in the UK in April/May 2023. With a plethora of instruments (guitars, mandos, fiddle, hand percussion, hammered dulcimer, gurdy, recorders) and Tania’s glorious voice with Mike’s support on harmonies and tall stories, they are superb entertainers.
Dan McKinnon (Canada) A superb relaxed singer and intelligent songwriter, Dan is a true troubadour, one voice, one guitar and one train ticket. He’s been touring the UK for many years now and makes friends and fans wherever he goes. He’ll be back in the UK again in September/October 2023
Lee Collinson Lee’s blinding ability on guitar and eclectic choice of songs. He can switch from contemporary and traditional folk, to 50s style, blues and jazz. “What a wonderful variety of well-chosen songs. Not just a superb musician but an all-round entertainer too. Such an enjoyable evening, I can’t wait to see him return.” – Andy (Dartford Folk Club)
Union Jill Yorkshire-based female acoustic duo with over a decade of festival and folk club experience. As singers, instrumentalists and songwriters, they bring a sense of storytelling with their songs, with vocals that produce spellbinding effects with their rich harmonies.
Keith Donnelly Singer-songwriter/stand-up comedian (clean)/great guitarist/storyteller. Geordie-cultural-attache, Keith carries an audience along with his madcappery. Keith also offers storytelling for children in schools and at festivals and any other events you can imagine.
He intends to continue writing and to keep his YouTube channel active.
It’s been a pleasure to work with him and I wish him well in all his future endeavours.
A message from Les:
Hello everybody. Here’s the October eletter; not quite what you’re expecting. Following a long and disastrous trip to Stirling – I don’t know whether it was down to old age, chemotherapy or what, I’ve decided it’s time to call it a day, potter around here and live a relaxed life. I can’t promise you’ll never see me again, but it won’t be as a performer. I’m 75 and that’s a long enough working life. Many thanks to Jacey, the Mrs Ackroyd Band members and many others for sharing all the years.
On the cancer front, I’m nearing the end of my first month of treatment and it will all be reviewed over the next few days.
Les
Les Barker, throiugh the years. Photo montage by Roger Liptrot (folkimages.com)
When I started my business in 1998 I called it Jacey Bedford Tour Management.
In those days I used to tour manage for artists coming in from outside the country, covering everything from booking the dates and sending out publicity to hiring a vehicle and doing the immigration paperwork.
I haven’t tour managed for several years.
Now I am strictly a music booking agency. I no longer tour manage, although I do book tours for artists from overseas as well as for UK-based artists. I let the name – Jacey Bedford Tour Management – linger for too long, but at last I’ve decided to change it to a simpler form.
From April 2022, my business name is Jacey Bedford Agency.
Everything else remains the same. My email is still agency@jacey-bedford.com. My phone number is still 01484 606230.
I’m still booking shows for the same lovely, talented people. You can see, hear and read all about them here at my website at http://www.jacey-bedford.com/
If we are to believe Boris, Covid has come and gone, but we all know that it’s still here, it’s simply not grabbing the media attention like the terrible Russian war on Ukraine.
However, with all restrictions lifted, the music world has been given tacit permission to get back to normal. But what does normal mean in 2022? It’s almost two years since the business we love fell off a cliff. Lockdown was imposed, theatres, arts centres and folk clubs closed, and we all grabbed whatever online music was available, ticketed or not.
Artists were suddenly faced with the prospect of an indefinite period with no work and no income – and so were booking agents, managers, sound-men, lighting engineers, studio engineers, and all those music industry workers who don’t appear on stage but who are vital to the industry. Venue staff were furloughed if they were lucky. Some self-employed music business folks who had tax records for the appropriate years got the government’s SEISS grant. Others fell through the cracks and had to find other sources of income.
At the time of writing, venues are opening their doors once more, though there are a lot of changes as international artists’ tours are cancelled and last minute substitutes step in to fill the gap. Attendance is variable. I hear reports that some artists are selling out venues in one area, but getting minimal audiences in others. There appears to be no reason for the differences. Other venues report a general downsizing of audiences by about 30%, which is not surprising, given some people are still voluntarily self-isolating because they don’t believe Boris either.
But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Venues are booking artists again to fill in their gaps for 2022 and also into 2023. And some foreign artists are taking all their Covid shots and braving the UK.
What about me?
I’ve taken a deep breath and reassessed my business. I’m stepping back from doing Certificates of Sponsorship for incoming foreign artists. So I’m concentrating on booking gigs in the UK for home grown and foreign performers. This has always been the main focus of my agency, but I’m now actively taking on a select few new artists. Anyone interested in joining my agency should read this article first on why you don’t need an agent – and what to do when you do. Please consider carefully before dropping me a line. I’m (mostly) looking for artists who are already established in the UK.
As I write, Over the Moon are on their first tour of the UK. They are a fabulous duo from Canada playing Canadian Cowboy and Western Swing with a bluegrassy feel and a bunch of great self-written songs. Their multi-instrumentals are complemented by delightful vocal harmonies. Their tour runs to early April 2022 and they’ll be back in 2023. We’ve just had the terrific news that their new album, Chinook Waltz has been nominated for a Juno Award (the Canadian equivalent of an Emmy). http://www.jacey-bedford.com/OvertheMoon.htm
Dan McKinnon is coming over from Canada soon (May/June). He’s emailed me to say he’s bought his plane tickets and I have twenty-one dates lined up for him. He’s a songwriter in the vein of Stan Rogers, i.e. story songs with intelligent lyrics. Dan is a true troubador. One man, one train ticket, one guitar. He’s been touring over here for close to 18 years and his fans love him. He was caught by Covid in 2020 and had to cut his March tour short after only two gigs. I rebooked it for 2021 (which didn’t happen, of course) but now he’s returning in 2022. Hoo-ray! http://www.jacey-bedford.com/danmckinnon.htm
I have taken on a new duo, Donnelly and South, yes that’s Keith Donnelly (who is already on my agency roster) and Lauren South, singer and instrumentalist. Keith, one of the most popular, and, yes slightly crazy, figures in the folk world, teams up with the scene’s most exciting new voice – Lauren South. Keith’s superb songwriting and guitar-playing too often take a back seat to his onstage madcappery. Not so in this duo (He promises!). Lauren’s stunning vocals on Keith’s songs, her own originals, as well as the odd ‘trad’ song, not forgetting her violin, guitar and Shruti box playing, never fail to ‘wow’ audiences wherever she goes. http://www.jacey-bedford.com/Donnelly%20and%20South.html
I’ve also taken on John Wort Hannam, Canadian singer-songwriter, who will be touring with fiddler Scott Duncan in May June of 2023. John has been nominated for (and won) so many awards that I’m not going to start listing them here. He’s a real slice of Canadiana, with intelligernt lyrics and tunes that catch your ear. Scott’s fiddling seems to add much more than one instrument. These guys are well worth a listen. http://www.jacey-bedford.com/JohnWortHannam.html
I have a lot more artists on my website, of course. Please take a look at http://www.jacey-bedford.com/ for the whole list.
What a year it’s been. I’d like a refund on 2020 because the whole year has not been fit for purpose!
All my agency gigs and tours have been cancelled up to the end of the year and we’ve just taken the decision to rearrange a Canadian duo’s March 2021 tour to 2022. I seriously doubt that the music industry will get back to ‘normal’ until there’s an effective vaccine. I foresee disruptions throughout 2021 as well. I’ve already had an update from an indoor festival due to take place in summer 2021 to say that it’s having problems booking its main venue in advance because the venue is demanding a Covid risk assessment which severely reduces the number of audience members.
Even though we knew it was serious I don’t think anyone predicted just how disruptive to the music/entertainment industry C-19 would be, and as we enter autumn a second wave is beginning. A few venues are opening again if they can social distance, but this is vastly reducing the number of tickets available. As cases rise it would not surprise me if venues were forced to close again as the winter progresses.
Some performers have managed to do live streamed shows (and charge for tickets or put out a tip-jar) but this is hardly a guaranteed income stream, so performers are struggling unless they have another job. Some are doing online teaching, but others are on paltry benefits.
Short-term Immigration for Performers – Certificates of Sponsorship and Visas
From July to just a few days ago I didn’t have any Certificates available to me thanks to inefficiency at UKVI, however I do have certificates now. Any performer wishing to come to the UK must have confirmation that their venues are legally socially distanced, and they must allow for a two week quarantine period on arrival if that’s a requirement for people travelling from their country of origin.
I can do sponsorship for anyone in the entertainment industry, film, and sports. Applicants need to provide documentation to prove their international standing, plus a full list of all their engagements in the UK. Visa nationals – i.e. those people travelling from a country whose citizens are required to get a visa for UK tourism – will need to take their Certificate of Sponsorship and apply for a visa in their own country. Please note than not all visa application offices abroad have reopened yet, and those that have are massively backlogged, so allow plenty of extra time for visas to come through.
Brexit and EU Performers
As I understand the new Brexit regulations, any European performers coming to work in the UK from 1st January 2021 will also need CoS, though they will not require a full visa. Like Americans/Canadians/Australians etc. (i.e. non-visa nationals) they can come in on a CoS as long as they are not intending to stay and work for more than 3 months. They can also come in on a PPE (Permitted Paid Engagement) if they are coming in for less than a month to do ‘a few’ gigs. (No one has ever defined ‘few’ in this context.) Check the government’s website for any recent alterations to this scheme.
Feel free to contact me by email if you have questions about visas and Certificates of Sponsorship – agency(at)jacey-bedford.com.
The Covid 19 situation is changing daily, so please check with venues and look at musicians websites before travelling to a gig that might not be happening.
This is what I know now… (Everything could change tomorrow.)
Gig cancellations
Some clubs and venues are closing for the duration of the Covid 19 crisis and cancelling their artists. It seems likely that large gatherings will be shut down by the government once our politicians get their act together. This could affect festivals and large concerts.
I had a Canadian artist who arrived last week ready to tour in March/April, but no sooner had he arrived than the Canadian government issued a warning to Canadian citizens abroad to get a flight home a) while they still could and b) before Canada closed its borders. Hence he did 2 gigs and then had to find $2500 for a flight home. Ouch!
Whatever country you are touring from could do the same. Don’t travel and get stranded.
Re CoS.
Before all this blew up I issued Certificates of Sponsorship for artists touring in April and May, which is now believed to be when Covid 19 will peak in the UK. It seems highly likely that, whether the venues themselves decide to close, or whether the government puts a ban on gatherings, many festivals and events will not happen this year.
At present I am not issuing CoS for artists touring in April, May and June UNLESS they have a guarantee that their gigs will go ahead (which currently is almost impossible to get), or unless they give me the go-ahead in the full knowledge that if their gigs don’t happen, for whatever reason, there are no refunds.
My feeling is that anyone intending to tour here in April, May or June should seriously reconsider rebooking their gigs for later in the year or even for 2021.
Today, 20th February 2020, the government issued guidelines for EU citizens coming into the UK to work from 2021 onwards. It’s moving all applications to a new points-based system. However Tier 5 visas for entertainers and sportspeople are already on a poinst based system.
They haven’t, as yet, issued any specific information for Tier 5 sponsors, so this is my best guess.
If everyone is going to have to go throught the points based system, then EU musicians will need a Tier 5 Certificate of Sponsorship from 2021 onwards in order to perform in the UK. If that means EU performers are going to be treated like American and Canadian ones, they’ll be able to enter the UK to perform on Certificates of Sponsorship without getting a full visa as long as they are not coming in for more than 3 months.
[Edit added 25th February 2020: Paragraph 21 of the policy statement says: 21. Under the current immigration rules, there are a range of other immigration routes for specialist occupations, including innovators, ministers of religion, sportspeople and to support the arts. Our broad approach for January 2021 will be to open existing routes that already apply to non-EU citizens, to EU citizens (the current ‘Tier 5’).]
Performers can only get a Tier 5 CoS via a licensed sponsor. It can be a multi-entry CoS, so they can come and go. If they want permission to work for more than 3 months it involves getting a CoS and converting it to a full visa, which is more complicated (and more expensive and more time consuming) and it also gives UK Visas and Immigration the opportunity to refuse the visa if they can find an excuse to do so. However, once they have a full visa, performers can come and go for up to a year.
For anyone who doesn’t want the hassle of getting a full visa, there’s nothing in the rules, at the moment, to prevent performers getting consecutive Certificates of Sponsorship as required as long as they leave the country and come back in again to activate the new CoS.
For people who want to stay for longer than three months, the big problem that I can foresee re getting full visas is that the UKVI staff who deal with full visa applications are already overstretched and visas for non EU performers are consistently late. This might not be a big deal for Tier 2 visas (i.e. someone applying so they can work in, say, a nursing home) but UKVI doesn’t seem to realise that Tier 5 visas are time sensitive. Therefore they make no effort to deliver visas in time for concert dates.
I would hope that UKVI would increase its staffing levels to cope with additionsl work, but I’m not sure it will.
Until recently visa applications were handled by British Embassies and British High Commissions in the country of the applicant, but over the last year or so, applications have all been transferred to Sheffield. There used to be a specialist sports and entertainment department in Sheffield, but that was disbanded, so the Entry Clearance Officers who deal with applications are no longer specialists. Their lack of understanding of the entertainment industry often (sadly) shows in the way decisions are made.
London’s Heathrow and Gatwick Airports have a new entry system at Arrivals (Passport Control) – electronic gates (eGates), unmanned, to speed up the arrivals queue for nationals from EU countries and from seven additional countries arriving into the UK. I’m not sure whether there are eGates at Manchester, Birmingham and Stanstead yet, but if there are not now, there might be in the near future.
From the government website:
The UK Government has expanded the use of eGates at Heathrow to nationals of Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the United States of America. the majority of nationals from these seven countries will be eligible to use eGates and won’t need to complete a landing card.
Automated eGates offer an alternative to conventional passport checks.
Simply scan your e-passport at the barrier. The system runs a face-recognition check against the chip in your passport, then if you’re eligible to enter the UK the gate opens automatically – all in a matter of seconds.
For everyone who has ever stood in line for an hour at the airport to show their passport to an immigration officer, this is great news, however there has been some confusion, which has caused problems for people holding Tier 5 Certificates of Sponsorship, i.e. entertainers and sportspeople from the aforementioned ‘new’ countries. If you go through the eGates, you won’t have your passport stamped and your Certificate of Sponsorship activated, so even though you’ve done everything right up to that point, without your CoS being activated, you still are not legal to work in the UK.
All Tier 5 CoS holders MUST go through one of the manned gates and – whether the Border Force officer asks or not – you MUST declare that you are coming in to the UK to work and that you have a Certificate of Sponsorship. Unless you do that, your CoS will show up as UNUSED on the government databse (the Sponsor Management System) and you will not be legal to work in the UK.
The expansion of the eGate system is new, and initially there was no signage to direct CoS holders appropriately. Not only that, but airport staff were incorrectly pushing everyone from the seven ‘new’ countries to the eGates. Now apparently there is signage to direct CoS holders to the manned gates, but it’s not as clear as it might be. If you are a CoS holder it’s your responsibility to make sure you go through a manned gate and SHOW YOUR CoS to the Border Force officer and get your correct passport stamp. If airport staff try to direct you to the unmanned gate, make sure you tell them you have a Tier 5 CoS.
Folk Music Agent Tells All 
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