Just in: Arts Council England gives £145,900 to German artists agency
NewsThe unchecked madness of giving public money to commercial artists agencies reached a nadir today when ACE announced its final set of Covid-19 grants, worth £35 million.
Among them is £145,900 to KD Schmid, the London branch of a German agency.
Sir Nicholas Serota, Chair, Arts Council England said: ‘This additional round of the Emergency Resource Support Fund has provided a vital lifeline to creative and cultural organisations who have faced further challenges whilst recovering from the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. We once again thank the government for its unprecedented support for our creative and cultural industries.’
This is utter nonsense.
When artist agencies collapsed in the US, others sprang up in their stead. Not one artist was orphaned.
Baling out these businesses has been an abuse of process, and of public money. In all, these scamming agencies have made off with £3-4 million that could and should have been spent on art and artists.
Serota, together with Darren Henley, ACE CEO should be hauled before a Parliamentary committee.
KD Schmidt is notorious. I heard from insiders that their employees are pressured by their superiors to gather a certain minimum number of engagements per month for their artists, as if such thing can be quantified.
I think that is known as artist management Mr Borslap, as in, er, finding work for musicians. Your gathering and quantifying is to boot a logical fallacy.
What???
The monthly target happens with quite a few of the larger agencies, which is why artist managers are often desperate to know ages in advance the fee their artist will be receiving: it’s to get the commission listed on the artist manager’s forward spreadsheet.
What happens if an artist manager fails to meet the monthly sales target? Do they get fired? In which case presumably the artist manager moves to another agency, taking with them their best artists, and leaving behind the lower earners who have helped them to miss their target. It is well known that artists tend not to have have loyalty to the corporate agency, but to the individual artist manager, for it is with the manager (if they are any good) that they develop a close working relationship.
Indeed.
Plenty are the stories of such problems.
When you know about the vagueries of concert life, requiring quantitative gigs from agency employees is stupid, it undermines the work itself, as well as the bond of trust between artist and employee, as well as damaging the working mood at the office. The successful agencies are the ones who take the insecurities of engagement bookings in their stride and just do their best. Mostly these are the small agencies. For artists, working with an agency is a matter of trust. I set-up a small agency myself many years ago, worked there for 2 years, and it is still one of the best in the Netherlands, because of this rule of trust. It are the big agencies who often get into trouble because of pressures that small agencies don’t have, or at least not to that extent, like a big overhead.
And then the corruption….. I know of [redacted] that the agency secretly ran an import tea business along the side, using artist fee money. Another agency, I don’t want to mention the name but it was [redacted], the directors used artist fees to buy and sell antique furniture for themselves, for hughe sums, while skimming the salaries of the employees, forcing them to work late in the night (without extra pay). It is Wild West and therefore, artists have to be very careful not to get involved with such enterprises.
I’m generally in favour of arts subsidy, but it’s so easy to be generous with other people’s money, isn’t it?
With energy prices increasing due, in part, to lack of proper planning, it won’t take much to turn people against the whole principle of arts subsidy. More awareness needed.
Shocked, but not surprised
The UK is headquarters to some of the biggest agencies in the world, I can tell you that if one of the big had collapsed it would have been terrible for promoters and the musicians represented. It pleases me that ACE has this recognized.
For some classical musicians, their agent was truthfully their only support during the pandemic. That is already enough pressure for an agent to handle let alone being in fear for its job. If you really want to know the value of agents in the pandemic ask the promoters.
I am surprised that Schmid is asking for money now when other agencies appear to recover strongly. That is the question I would ask.
«Not one artist was orphaned» – I can name more than 10.
probably KD Schmid, the London branch, is paying taxes in UK, so it is perfectly logical and correct they receive this helps.
Challenges? Isn’t that why under capitalism one goes into business? Good article, Norman.
Too many in the Arts with little concept of the actual value of money – and no wonder when what they are throwing around is effectively other people’s taxed income.
Nadine Dorries on to this right away