Artist Managers: unpicking the Brexit knot

Time was I seemed to be reporting on Brexit-related artist management issues every other month. Then Mr Johnson got Brexit done (apparently) and things calmed down somewhat. Many issues relating to artist management nonetheless remain unresolved. So it was intriguing to read via Hansard a flurry of recent words exchanged on the subject in the Houses of Commons and Lords, plus in the committee rooms of the Palace of Westminster. One matter discussed was the value (not) being placed on music and music education in the UK, but the frustration of continuing post-Brexit restraints on UK musicians, including orchestras, seeking to work in the EU was also mentioned. It was a Tory peer, Lord Black of Brentwood, who reported in the chamber that ‘EU touring is now torturously difficult, with bookings for hard-pressed UK musicians in EU festivals down a staggering 45%.’

An over-bleak assessment? Where do things stand as the so-called Windsor Framework suggests a thawing of relations with the EU? The word is that things have settled into being at least manageable for individual musicians wishing to tour in the EU, although one recommendation is that evidence is carried on entry to any territory of one’s status as a career musician. Young, emerging musicians nonetheless face a potential catch-22 of not being able to provide evidence of one’s ‘career’ in the EU… without having had easy access to that marketplace.

However, in other areas there has been (according to one source) ‘literally no further progress in the past year’. For example, British orchestras for whom artist managers put together strings of dates in EU territories are still having to observe regulations which result in the need to hire, at additional expense, haulage companies based in the EU to transport equipment onward from Channel ports.

The biggest issue, though, remains that of the stipulation that UK musicians may not spend more than 90 days in the Schengen area across a 180-day period. ‘Contracts for conductors and opera singers can easily need to exceed this number,’ observes Atholl Swainston-Harrison, chief executive of the International Artist Managers’ Association (IAMA). ‘Resolution can only be effected on a national level. There are encouraging signs that administrative machinery might well be put in place to give a “visa” status for extended work periods, but that will be for individual immigration departments to sort. Ironically, for artists coming to the UK, we’re one of the easiest countries in Europe, if not the easiest, when it comes to entry.’

Artist manager Helen Sykes, long used to grappling with the issues as chair of the IAMA Brexit committee, reflects on the exchange she had on the association’s behalf in 2020/21 with the office of the then chief EU Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, over the issue of free movement for musicians. It was pointed out to her that the offer had been on the table for a pan-EU agreement with the British government on visa-free access — which would have benefited musicians, among other employment categories. ‘However, for whatever reason, our government didn’t see fit to take up the opportunity,’ Sykes ruefully observes. ‘I don’t feel it was a case of the EU being awkward. It would be great if there could be a re-opening of discussions in the new atmosphere that exists.’

I hear there was a bumper (possibly record) attendance at late April’s annual IAMA conference based at the Konzerthaus in Vienna. Non-European attenders arrived from as far afield as Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada. Artist managers, yes, but a significant number of representatives of the wider music industry, not least from the concert promotion sector.

All warmly gratifying for conference chairman (and Vienna-based artist manager) Nora Pötter. ‘On the one hand I think it was a case of the conference topics being appealing, but also there was a sense of the event providing opportunities for direct personal communication after the long period of having to use Zoom during the pandemic. At the end of the day, this is a person-to-person business.’

Among the range of sessions, there was a detailed look at how international touring can be squared with climate-consciousness and the ever-necessary examination of up-to-date opportunities in marketing. In my last column, Pötter predicted that one of the key conference sessions would be ‘Leadership in Volatile Times’. One major dimension here, the need to nurture young artist manager talent in times of a developing debate in society generally on the appropriate balance between work and leisure — in part, a re-evaluation provoked by the Covid experience. The issues were indeed given a thorough airing at Vienna. The conundrum, says Pötter, is that yes, there may have to be more flexibility over work/life balance, ‘but there remains the fact that artist managers must, for example, present at concerts to show their support for artists. Among other things, they must be reachable at weekends to sort matters that come up unexpectedly. One outcome from the session was the awareness that the issues need to be discussed in an IAMA context between conferences.’

Pötter also reflects on the space given at the conference to that not unfamiliar topic of how to attract audiences of the future. The new slant here, the post-Covid phenomenon of promoters in many cases being more prone to book names guaranteed to bring in bumper audiences, not least with ‘safe’ repertoire being performed. Says Pötter: ‘The fear is of the harm this may do to the younger generation of musicians.’

 One perception at the conference, Pötter observes, was that ‘venues which have more secure funding via public subsidy can show the way for other promoters by being courageous in this regard, with both artists and repertoire. But there’s a need also for younger artists to be closely involved in the evolution of repertoire programming… and the venues in which music is performed.’

Pötter is also keen to report two major contributions to conference camaraderie. Firstly, the healthy take-up of the offer of participation in the Vienna City Marathon… including by some for whom the experience was entirely new. Then, the mass tuition in waltz technique provided at the conference dinner. ‘These two things both helped the process of interaction beyond the main schedule. It all encourages the exchange of ideas.’

One of the waltzers nonetheless tells me that, fun though the experience was, ‘we got to know how poorly skilled the artist management sector is on the dance floor.’ Well, there’s something to follow up on at next year’s conference in Bruges.