Continuing to talk about my time at the Western Arts Alliance Conference last week. There were a few things that the membership seemed to enjoy. Or at least those who spoke up at the annual meeting did.
The first was how things were scheduled. The Resource Room where all the agents and artist reps were wasn’t opened when there were showcases or seminars occuring. When the Resource Room was open, it was only for 3-4 hours at a time.
There were a number of benefits people cited. The first was that the agents only had to stand for 3 hours at a time. Another was that it helped being able to attend the seminars and showcases so they could discuss trends and see what sort of talent was out there. With the break for seminars and showcases, the people who were booking acts felt energized and were ready to talk business again. Also, watching performances provided some inspiration about what they might like to present. The bookers returned with fresh ideas and were prepared to approach people they hadn’t thought about presenting before.
The other thing I really appreciated was that there was a code of ethics published about how, where and when an agent could approach a presenter about the acts they represented. Well, actually, a lot of places have that code, I should say rather I appreciated that most people adhered to it.
I was button holed a couple times, but for the most part, agents left business at the resource room door. I ended up having lunch and dinner with a few agents and it was nice not worrying about being pressured to present their clients while my mouth was full.
In fact, the conference sponsored a dine around where someone volunteered to choose a restaurant and organize the logistics of getting a group of folks to dinner. People signed up on sheets when they arrived so the host could get a head count and then off we went. So that night I actually ended up eating with about 5-6 agents and another 5-6 presenters. The conversation was so general that I didn’t know any of them were agents except for the host and I only knew he was because the sign up sheet identified him as such.
So just some tips for you conference planners and attenders out there to make your experience a little more pleasant.