How Arts Council England was duped by artist agents
NewsWe are the only ones to have exposed the scandal by which ACE wound up paying £3-4 million in Covid rescue funds to large artist agencies such as HarrisonParrott, Askonas Holt, Intermusica, Oligarch-owned IMG and KD Schmid.
If any of these agencies had gone bust, no artists would have suffered.
The proof?
Eighteen months ago, in mid-lockdown, Maria Mot broke away from Intermusica with two-dozen artists including Lise Davidsen, Gerald Finley, Ruxandra Donose and Freddie de Tommaso.
Today, without a penny of public money, Maria’s start-up lists 32 singers on her books. The latest to join is the outstanding international soprano Anna Pirozzi (pictured).
The ACE’s involvement with artist agencies has been either downright incompetent or borderline corrupt.
The national press would not touch the story. Slippedisc.com has now written to MPs calling for a Parliamentary inquiry that can cross-examine the ACE’s CEO Darren Henley and its chair, Sir Nicholas Serota.
Artists deserve answers and the major agencies need to give than money back.
Why don’t you invite each agency to explain how the ACE money was spent. Specifically which engagements did each agency promote, or take a box office risk on, which their artist would not otherwise have been engaged for in the course of normal agency business.
Agree entirely. But to add to this… the money was also there to pay their admin staff.
I.e. those whose jobs it was to spend hours on hold with airlines to rearrange artists’ cancelled flights. Or to crawl through pages of foreign government websites for the latest on travel restrictions to ensure their artists had the correct tests and paperwork to travel – one mistake and you’re turned away at the border. Or meticulously calculating the days required for the artist to quarantine in that country ahead of their engagement to work out whether it was financially viable (only for these restrictions to change the next day, so hours of research down the drain). Or desperately liaising with embassies to secure a highly-sought visa appointment in a tight timeframe.
It’s one thing to get work in the diary, but it’s another thing entirely to actually get TO that job in a time when the goalposts are ever-changing. The bulk of this work is often the responsibility of junior staff e.g. assistants and administrators, not managers, who essentially had to transform themselves into travel agents-cum-immigration lawyers overnight.
As many here have commented these are businesses just like any other, and whilst diaries were emptier, workloads at many agencies tripled due the time and energy needed to ensure those remaining engagements could actually be carried out.
If these agencies had gone many artists would certainly have suffered.
Exactly. Add Brexit into the mix and it has been quite the puzzle.
In defence of artists’ agencies – and I’m not making a point about the public money some have received – but the model is difficult and the pandemic a disaster, as for so many. Agents send out hundreds of emails, and often spend money on travelling to many meetings, for a relatively (to that) small number of bookings for which they usually see no money for two or three years, after the performances have taken place. There are many more emails, working on contracts, and all other sorts of things that have to be done in the interim. With every Covid cancellation, the agent as well as the artist suffers. With every postponement, much of that work needs to be repeated, for no more money and indeed a delaying of the payment on which the agency was counting (as was the artist, of course).
This is based on experience in boutique agency settings rather than the big companies, but artist management is an industry like others, part of the arts economy, and the people doing those jobs are surely entitled to the same consideration as others in the arts whose livelihoods have been seriously threatened. Whether Arts Council handouts, or something else, are the answer is for others to debate.
Exactly. It is an industry like any other. Doesn’t matter if it’s selling performances or nuts and bolts. The government put in place various schemes to support industry, including furlough. ACE money to support core function is double dipping.
The point is you can’t continue supporting the artists while on furlough, and there is a discrepancy between work that was done years ago (arranging engagements) not being paid and not being able to plan for the artists’ future or handle their compensation claims because you’re furloughed.
On top of that, if you look closely at that ACE list, there are plenty of commercial enterprises…
Emails? So sending emails costs money???
It costs the running costs of computers, internet, software, and most importantly….time. So yes. It costs money.
Of course it does – the agencies have to employ people to send said emails, and provide them with technology from which to send them on..?!?
I’m confused.
Performing artists in the UK were eligible for the Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), which was released in 3-monthly batches. There were 5 SEISS grant periods in total.
Agencies were eligible for the Business Bouceback Loan, which provided them with a loan equivalent to 3 months of turnover, that had to be repaid over 5 years at 2.5% APR. Once this 3 month period had expired, agencies then appealed to ACE for further help.
I did not apply for an ACE grant. I relied on my savings; but then I don’t have an office and, more importantly, staff who have families etc.
I understand from IAMA that the application process for ACE grants was very complicated and required extensive evidence to be submitted by agencies.
£3-4m for more than a year, for a number of agencies, does not seems to be egregious once the sum is broken down to its constituent parts.
Perhaps we should be less quick to anger, in this regard.
Agree re: furlough and business loans, but probably a lot of artists on these agencies’ books would have fallen between the cracks of government support. The MU says 40% of musicians got nothing. There was an arbitrary cut-off in place for self-employed people at £50k, for example, which was not present in the furlough scheme and which might rule out a lot of soloists and chamber players. And many had the wrong combo of PAYE and self employed income.
Why is an artist’s management any different than other service businesses, Accounting firms, law offices etc ? Agencies employ hundred of support staff, most of which would have been out of a job if the agency had gone bust.Furthermore Maria Mott still needs and enjoys the support staff of Intermusica. She is not completely independent !
Yes which is why they were eligible for more general business support such as the furlough scheme. They surely don’t also require art funding on top of this?
But furlough only accounts for employees pay, not for the upkeep of a business’ runnings costs. The BBL, which did account for running costs, only lasted for 3 months. Hence the ACE scheme.
As is pointed out in the comments above, agencies are in integral part of the arts world and for all the few rotten apples that may be involved, many artist managers work incredibly hard for the benefit of their artists.
As for the claim that if any of them had shut no artist would have suffered is surely rubbish. The relationship between an artist and manager is often a delicate one built on trust and the collapse of agencies and the subsequent loss of a manager can have enormous impact on an artist. It also encourages the belief that a manager losing their livelihood (and it’s well documented that many agents lost their jobs during the pandemic – Askonas alone made over 20 staff redundant) is somehow perfectly acceptable.
As to Maria Mot ‘breaking away’ from Intermusica, the point needs to be made that – without taking anything away from her achievement during a difficult time – she is still very much affiliated to the larger agency; the association is clear from their website.
Is it not likely that this money was paid through to the UK artists themselves, who were unable to perform and who were also ineligible for furlough schemes etc?
All these agencies had staff on furlough – why did they also require ACE funding?
They couldn’t put everyone on furlough, because that would have been cataclysmic for the artists who still needed work contracted and the support and advice of their agents, all of this though was for often for work years away, which wouldn’t give any immediate payout. It is the risky nature of talent management business models, you need strong cashflow, if not any reserves will be eaten up very quickly.
Remember that after September 2020 even furlough had to be part paid for, the moneys were just not there. If it weren’t for ACE offering this lifeline, the whole classical music management industry could very well have collapsed in the UK.
Mot did the same as Enticott at IMG, she has her own agency but it is supported and staffed by Intermusica. It is a very bad example to give in your words and some myopic conclusions you make. I do not think you have exposed a scandal but have instead completely failed to understand the industry you claim to know.
Have you considered hosting a podcast? The Norman Lebrecht Experience would be a good title.
‘I do not think you have exposed a scandal but have instead completely failed to understand the industry you claim to know.’
Precisely. Moreover, the alleged perfidy of artist managers is one of Mr Lebrecht’s well-known bugbears; his persistent railing against them is practically knee-jerk at this point, and reveals merely his biases. He comes across like a grumpy pensioner yelling at those darn neighbourhood kids to stay off his front lawn.
The only reason we still come to this site is because he does have a handful of well-placed sources and occasionally still breaks a noteworthy news story (although his attempts at analysis often fall wide of the mark).