Talent Buyer

The job of the Talent Buyer is pretty self-explanatory: they buy talent (aka bands) for venues. For any concert that happens, be it an all day music festival or a tiny bar with a local act, someone needs to find the band and that person is the Talent Buyer.

As a Talent Buyer, you’ll work for an arena, bar, or club and spend your time finding bands and booking concert dates. You figure out what type of band and size of crowd fits the venue’s space, then contact a band you feel best fits this criteria. Although you might be tempted to just book bands you want to see, you need to remember that you’re responsible for bringing in enough people for make money; no matter how much you love a band you don’t want an empty concert floor.

The Talent Agent for the band or Singer will work with you to figure out dates fitting with the acts touring schedule, then you’ll start negotiating on price. You want to make sure you don’t give the band too low a number or make the venue pay too much, else you’ll find yourself out of a job or out of talent you can book.

Once you’ve successfully picked a band and found a date the job of a Music Promoter takes over. Though that of a Buyer and Promoter are two different positions, often times responsibilities overlap and, especially in small clubs, you find yourself helping on the marketing of the concert you just booked.