Hiring Headline Entertainment Week

By Mark Sonder

I have been called many things in my life both in the past and presently… Chief Entertainment Officer, Talent Buyer, Entertainment Producer, Professor, Author, Speaker, Judge, Industry Leader…however, until Editor-In-Chief of this magazine Vince Alonzo called, I had never been called “Guru!”  Thanks Vince!!

This week we will explore 4 different topics on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.  Most will be on headline entertainment.  One, I hope will be a stimulus to create a dialog on our professional associations and certifying society on their respective “code of ethics.”  I will be silent on Thursday as that day I will be giving an interactive live Webinar for the University of Nevada at Las Vegas entitled, “Hiring Headline Entertainment for Meetings and Events.”  Although there is a cost ($99), I urge each and everyone of you whose job description calls for hiring such an important element of the hospitality industry or who might in the future be called upon to do such a task to register for this 1-hour Webinar to take place on Thursday at noon EST.  Please click: UNLV Meetings Entertainment Webinar.

The Six Step Guide to Hiring Headline Entertainment

Entertainment comes in all varieties, in all languages, transcending all borders, whether upside down or inside out, so booking headline entertainment means making choices from among a vast number of options. For the uninitiated, it can be a crazy process. You must first determine what fits your client's needs and expectations, based on the meeting/event's goals and objectives so that you will be able to provide the entertainment management company with an audience profile that will help them find the most appropriate speaker or headline entertainer. A step-by-step guide to this process is presented below.

How to Book Headline Entertainment: The Process Simplified

1. Research the needs of the audience and identify the appropriate resources to fill these needs.

2. Select an artist. This works best if you or your client either selects five headliners you would like to have perform at your meeting or event, or prepare an approximate budget and category of music/entertainment/speaker in order to narrow the list of options. *

3. Have your agent or corporate entertainment company make a written offer to the artist Remember, an agent can offer you only the artists that are on the agency's roster. If the artists you are looking for are represented by more than one agency, you will need to contact more than one agent or just one corporate entertainment company. I would counsel all to utilize corporate entertainment companies. Are you prepared and empowered to make a reasonably quick decision? It is common to lose headliners when clients are not able to act quickly enough to secure the act.

4. If the offer is accepted, sign a contract for services of the artist. Once your written offer is accepted, it is very difficult to turn back. Are you prepared to make a 50% deposit when and if a headline entertainer accepts your offer?

5. Secure production for the show or have your corporate entertainment company provide the product and services.

6. Monitor the production process and evaluate the outcomes.

More on the Offer and Contract tomorrow.

* Short Tabulation of Formats of Entertainment, click here:

The Mark Sonder List of Entertainment Formats

The Mark Sonder 20 Formats of Music

Adult Contemporary

Alternative

Blues

Children’s Entertainment

Christian

Classical

Comedy

Country

Dance

Folk

Holiday

Jazz

Latin

Pop

Reggae

Rock

Urban

Variety

World Music

20’s; 30’s; 40’s; 50’s ; 60’s; 70’s; 80’s; 90’s; 00’s

MIGURU Mark Sonder, CSEP is the Chief Entertainment Officer of Mark Sonder Productions, an award-winning leading national entertainment agency designing headline talent and production services for facilities, corporations and associations.  In addition, Sonder sits on the faculty of George Mason University, University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV), The George Washington University, Stratford University, Northern Virginia Community College, and The University of the West Indies.  Event Entertainment and Production is the book published by Wiley authored by Sonder. You can e-mail Mark at msonder@marksonderproductions.com.