The 2020-21 period is best forgotten for most, but one of the more positive legacies of the pandemic years for the touring community was the emergence of a wave of new independent booking agencies.

Whether by choice or necessity, the UK gained the likes of Mother Artists, One Fiinix Live, Route One Booking, Marshall Live Agency, Runway Artists and Playbook Artists; the US welcomed Arrival Artists, Mint Talent Group, TBA Agency and Paladin Artists; and the Spanish agency landscape expanded with Rebel Beat Agency.

As we approach the fifth anniversary of the Covid-enforced live music shutdown, almost all are still in operation – at odds with the broader market’s shift towards consolidation – providing an opportune juncture for IQ to take stock with a selection of the indie nation’s key players.

Among the most high-profile new entrants on the scene was One Fiinix Live. Founded by Ed Sheeran agent Jon Ollier in 2020 after nearly six years with CAA, the firm’s acts also include 2Cellos, Calum Scott, Picture This, Black Stone Cherry and Tash Sultana.

Ollier declares himself more than satisfied with its work to date.

“We’re achieving everything that we set out to achieve,” he reports. “I didn’t have a particularly grandiose vision when I started out because I didn’t know whether we were going to be in it for the long haul or whether I was just going to do something for a short period of time to see us through the pandemic before going back into another company.”

“Hopefully the few of us that have set up have been able to show big artists that the service is just as good as other agencies”

One Fiinix expanded its horizons last year with the hirings of US-based agents John Pantle and Bex Wedlake.

“Culturally it is how I envisaged it,” says Ollier. “We have a group of people that pull each other through and fight for each other.”

Natasha Gregory departed Paradigm (now Wasserman Music) in late 2020 to launch Mother Artists with her brother Mark Bent. The award-winning company’s roster includes acts such as IDLES, Amy Macdonald, The Teskey Brothers, CMAT, Ry X, Blair Davie and Foster the People.

“Maybe there are more options outside of the big corporates now, and hopefully the few of us that have set up have been able to show big artists that the service is just as good as other agencies,” muses Gregory. “You need to deliver a good service for your artist and that can be very difficult when you have 80 acts on the roster. I find it easier when it’s a smaller team, but there’s space for everyone.”

Nevertheless, Gregory plays down the impact of the proliferation of indies on the wider agency business.

“I’m not sure it’s changed the industry; I’m not sure the industry will ever change,” she tells IQ. “I don’t begrudge or look negatively at how any agency runs, no matter what size. The way I look at it is that there is a place for every person that suits themselves, their character, their needs, their meaning of success and their ambition. And then there are artists that fit into a service that they like in terms of how they want to be looked after and what’s important to them.”

“What the pandemic kicked into gear was the proliferation of indies at the bottom end”

Elsewhere, Runway Artists was set up in the spring of 2020 by former ATC Live agent Matt Hanner, who brought in ex-Primary Talent International veteran Steve Backman the following year.

“One of our big aims was to avoid becoming a small boutique that was largely irrelevant – especially being over in Portsmouth – and that was part of the reason we promptly set up a London office,” remembers Hanner. “We were both coming from established, bigger agencies and were used to operating at that level. The big were getting bigger; the consolidation at the top end of the market was happening, and what the pandemic kicked into gear was the proliferation of indies at the bottom end.”

Other early Runway hires included emerging executives Amy Greig and Dotun Bolaji (now at Primary). Its current artist roster includes …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, A Certain Ratio, Gabriella Cilmi, Future Teens, The Boo Radleys, The Mission, The Wytches and Red Snapper.

“We’ve grown the company, we’ve grown our personnel and we’ve identified younger professional talent who were either a little rough around the edges or had no real experience of the industry,” adds Hanner. “As a result, I think we have kept a seat at the table. We’re up against the ATCs or CAAs of the world when we go in for pitches and I’m not saying we’re winning a lot of them, but that’s the pool we want to be fishing in.

“We’ve also done it within the context of not having any big artists,” he continues. “We’re working a lot with grassroots and developing artists and we have a selection of heritage artists, but nothing huge and so we’re having to cut our cloth accordingly. But we’ve kept going, we’ve kept growing and I think Runway is now a company that people have really heard of which – given the explosion of agencies, especially on the independent side over the last few years – is something to be celebrated.”

“I don’t think you need an international partner to do a good job on an act”

On the subject of overseas partners, Hanner acknowledges the benefits but disputes the assertion they are now essential in the modern agency game.

“I don’t think you need an international partner to do a good job on an act,” he argues. “We represent artists where – even in Europe – we might share them with a Scandinavian agent, for example. We work alongside them and can do a good job for the artist together.

“I think the problem is that it’s a stick to beat people with when you haven’t got an international partner and other people come looking for your artist – the talk of synergies and shared calendars and that sort of thing. And invariably, this is coming from a company that also has a literary department and a screenwriter department and various other things they can dangle in front of you.

“I don’t think it’s the be-all and end-all, but if you can pitch internationally then I think it can serve you well in terms of the competition for signing and keeping artists. I appreciate, from a manager’s point of view, why a global pitch would be a sealer.”

Marshall, the British music company best known for its guitar amplifiers and speaker cabinets, launched Marshall Live Agency in 2020, helmed by agent Stuart Vallans. Vallans, who represents names like The Meffs, Heavy Lungs, Split Dogs, Pleasureinc, Cucamaras and Carsick, founded boutique agency TRUST. Artists last year and extols the virtues of going it alone.

“It’s been the best decision I’ve ever made: to be able to come and go as I please and run things how I see fit is something that fills me with happiness,” he says.

“Revenues are on the up, ticket sales are increasing across the board and bigger opportunities are opening for bands”

In Vallans’ experience, it is no more difficult to operate as an independent agency in 2025 than when he first started out.

“For us nothing has changed, it’s just been a steady increase in everything we’re doing,” he says. “Revenues are on the up, ticket sales are increasing across the board and bigger opportunities are opening for bands that we’ve been working closely with for several years. A1 forms and withhold tax are still a pain, but it’s part of what we have to do!”

Moreover, Vallans, who is in the process of adding new agents to the TRUST roster, detects a sea change in attitudes among the artist community.

“I think a lot of artists are getting a quite cynical view of big corporates, not only in the agency world but when it comes to all aspects of the industry,” he opines. “We work with so many tight knit teams – often without managers – building artists’ careers based on things we can control rather than hit and hope playlisting, press pitching and posting on socials x amount of times per day. No thanks!

“A lot of bands we work with have been churned out by the corporate system as they weren’t hitting their quota of shows/financial figures. These bands are still in demand and can have careers in music, we’re giving them a home to develop and be the bands that they want to be.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some consolidation at some stage between a few of the agencies, especially some of the one-man bands out there”

Notable happenings in the past couple of years have seen Primary Talent International return to independence following a management buyout, while UK-based indie Earth Agency celebrated its 10th anniversary last year. The sector also suffered a blow with the recent collapse of FMLY.

Looking ahead, Hanner expects further consolidation within the marketplace.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some consolidation at some stage between a few of the agencies, especially some of the one-man bands out there, because there are challenges to running a small business. But I don’t see a bunch of indie agencies giving up in the next few years,” he asserts. “I think people have found there’s an ethos that you might lose at a corporate company, and people have grown accustomed to that and enjoy working in that way.”

Closing on a confident note, Vallans sees the future for indie agencies as “incredibly positive”.

“Indie agencies can continue to flourish, 100%,” he concludes. “We collaborate on so many shows and events with other agencies and it’s great to see.”

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At its heart, the story of the first decade of Earth Agency is one of a forward-thinking business consistently ahead of the curve. It is now ten years since four female agents – Claire Courtney, Isla Angus, Naomi Palmer, and Rebecca Prochnik – united with Luke Williamson to form the company, which has managed to stay on the cutting edge every step of the way.

“We’re not a small major, but neither are we a big boutique agency,” muses Williamson over lunch with IQ in London. “We have 400 artists, 18 agents, and we do eight-figure sales on behalf of artists, so we’re not at the scale of a UTA or WME or Wasserman, but we have headliners, we have people capable of doing 20,000-cap tours, and a lot of emerging acts. If you ask around the industry, you’ll get different opinions, but I think we’re known as an agency that curates talent.”

Williamson, Palmer, and Prochnik decided to branch off on their own after growing disillusioned in their previous workplace at the now defunct Elastic Artists.

“It was slowly becoming clear that the company that Rebecca and I had been at for ten years wasn’t moving progressively and helping us to address the way in which the live booking landscape was changing,” remembers Palmer.

“We felt like it wasn’t being managed in a way that was good for agents – particularly as agents became more senior,” adds Williamson. “During that whole process, it became evident that we needed to go and start our own thing. It was pretty rapid after that.”

Fleshing out the point, Earth Agency had already been up and running for 18 months when the founders’ worst fears about their former employer were realised, as Elastic Artists fell into administration in late 2015.

“We’re not financially targeted; it’s for agents to find their own financial targets”

“Ultimately, we left two years before it collapsed, so we were proven correct, and events conspired to accelerate the process of starting Earth,” says Williamson. “There was no one moment; there were a series of moments, and it was more of an evolutionary process.”

When Planets Align
The trio became a quintet after enlisting Courtney and Angus from Nomanis to officially launch Earth in May 2014.

“We got a call one day from Rebecca, Luke, and Naomi, who asked if we wanted to form a company with them,” explains Courtney. “We all shared the same values of wanting to remain independent and trying to find a nice balance between not being stuck in the office all hours that god sends but still being able to deliver a really good service for our artists. We went from it just being the five of us, to eight, to 12, to 20-something now, which I still find quite astounding.”

Attaining that work-life balance was central to Earth’s pledge to offer a “fresh agency environment for both artists and agents.”

“The industry talks a lot about mental health issues but doesn’t necessarily address its own role in that,” opines Williamson. “So we’re not financially targeted; it’s for agents to find their own financial targets. If we think an agent is dynamic but isn’t necessarily making a huge amount of money, we’ll try and create a deal that works for them.”

“At the time, larger agencies were not keen on remote working,” says Palmer, who worked as an actors’ agent for eight years before switching to music. “We all had very young children and had a culture of remote working at our previous company, which worked really well, and we wanted to continue that.

“A lot of the companies we met wanted us in the office from 10-6 or 9-5, but that just wasn’t an option. We were doing great business with our model, and we knew we could continue to do great business that way. We’ve had people working from all over the world – and successfully – in the last 10 years.”

“We just steamed in and did what we needed to do”

In certain respects, ignorance was bliss when it came to getting Earth off the ground.

“It wasn’t hugely complicated – because we didn’t know what we were doing,” laughs Williamson, a former musician turned ops specialist. “It’s that Dunning-Kruger [effect] of when you don’t know how complicated something is, you approach it with quite high levels of confidence. We just steamed in and did what we needed to do.

“We were carrying a lot of ongoing bookings. It’s like a moving train: the booking process doesn’t stop, so you’re essentially taking your bookings off one train and moving them onto another while both trains are moving. But I think we were so busy with that that the rest of it just kind of had to happen around us.”

Earthlings
Palmer reels off a list of common characteristics she believes runs through the team.

“They are very independently minded, driven by elevating the culture, self-starters, usually a real specialist in one particular area, and very ambitious,” she says. “And quite quirky!”

The name, incidentally, was Palmer’s choice. “I just wanted something universal but really simple, and I really liked ‘Earth’ because people read into it what they want,” she says. “It’s a place where creatives can thrive.”

“I loved the fact that it was founded by four women”

Setting off with a mission statement of targeting “exciting and interesting” independent artists who “sit outside the mainstream channels,” Earth’s opening address referenced the “somewhat outside-the-box” tastes of its creators. Be that as it may, the agency found itself at the forefront of the grime phenomenon in the latter half of the 2010s.

“A lot of people think of Earth Agency and think of Skepta because his meteoric rise in our early years – out of a scene that was as explosive as that one was – is not seen often,” reflects Palmer. “Maybe that overshadowed a lot of the other work that was being done, but that’s always the case when something is very explosive like that.”

“When we started, there were only seven or eight of us and four agents in relatively distinct genres. We’re a much broader church than that now,” offers Williamson. “In some cases, Earth is going to offer a platform for developing agents that other agencies just won’t, because they don’t have the required roster value. A significant subset of our agents are people who’ve come through from being assistants in the beginning.”

Lucy Atkinson, who started out at Earth in 2015 as Palmer’s assistant and is now agent for the likes of Erika de Casier and Sega Bodega, is one of many to have taken that route.

Lass-tronauts
“I loved the fact that it was founded by four women, and I harassed them for about six months before getting a job there,” reminisces Atkinson. “Eventually, I got an email; I remember it said, ‘Earth calling’ from Luke. He was like, ‘I think we’ve got a job for you,’ and I was stoked. When I moved to Earth, it was always with the intention that I would be released as a full agent, and I really felt like they gave me a lot of space to grow and to do that.

“When I approach new artists, I always let them know that we are independent to the core, and that’s not changing. We’re one of the largest independents with a good infrastructure. I don’t know how it’s perceived from the outside, maybe that we’re a little bit rebellious? We’re definitely a bit rebellious and off the beaten path. The artists that we work with might not have fitted elsewhere, but we give them somewhere where they can be themselves and thrive.”

“We have headliners, but they’re a reasonably fractional part of our business”

The current Earth roster includes acts such as Sega Bodega, Death in Vegas, Bad Gyal, Buzzcocks, Gilles Peterson, James Holden, The Zombies, WSTRN, MJ Cole, M1llionz, BNXN, Lisa O’Neill, Aluna, Balmorhea, and KRS-ONE. Williamson, however, prefers to focus on the collective.

“We have headliners, but they’re a reasonably fractional part of our business,” he emphasises. “Most of the work we do is with people who are a little bit underneath that tier but are creatives with successful touring portfolios. They might not be playing 20,000 to 30,000-cap venues, but they might consistently be playing 500 to 3,000- caps – and that’s kind of the point. There has to be an agency that is available to that part of the ecosystem. So to focus on individual artist successes would be to miss the point slightly.”

Its ways of thrashing out deals can occasionally be unorthodox, as detailed by a memorable encounter between Earth agents Sam Gill and Ben Haslett and The Great Escape team.

“We’re based in Somerset House, so in the summer, there’s gigs, and in the winter, there’s an ice rink,” says Haslett. “We had a meeting with The Great Escape, so you had Adam Ryan, the head booker, on the ice.

Obviously, no one was great at skating, but we were trying to go around in circles and slow down next to him while he was holding onto the side.”

“While we were pitching artists,” chips in Gill. “Definitely out-of-the-box pitching, that.”

And did the unique approach have the desired result?

“Always,” grins Gill. “One hundred percent success rate.”

“People stay with Earth because we offer something bespoke in terms of both agents and artists, and I see that in action on a daily basis”

The Solar System
Haslett came up through the Earth system after being involved in his local DIY music scene, while Gill returned to independence following a spell with UTA.

“Becoming a dad, moving out of London and the rat race, and getting that work-life balance was something that I may have struggled with earlier in my career,” says Gill. “Earth has given me that creative freedom to take that into my own hands, and I appreciate that more than anything.”

Isla Angus became the first Earth founding partner to fly the nest, exiting for ATC Live in 2016. She has since left the agency world entirely and now works for environmental charity ClientEarth. In general, though, Williamson considers the prospect of key agents and artists moving on to be simply “part of the game.”

“I think that our retention of agents is largely very good,” he counters. “When the more senior agents leave, it tends to be because their roster is coming under pressure from the larger agencies. For me, that’s just part of the game – people move.

“People stay with Earth because we offer something bespoke in terms of both agents and artists, and I see that in action on a daily basis. I see senior agents being able to do things with their lives that they would not be able to do at one of the more corporate agencies, and loving it: taking two months out to finish the draft of their book and going to Portugal to do it; having a baby and not having to compromise their position with their roster; deciding that they want to move to another town or another country, and supporting them to do that.”

Un-Earthed
Nevertheless, Williamson describes the departure of Prochnik, who left for UTA in the autumn of 2021 (she has since switched to Wasserman Music), as “seismic.”

“I’ve been friends with her for a very long time,” he says. “It wasn’t entirely unexpected, and I guess the logic of it was understandable. It’s a shame it happened, but it happened. And like I say, Earth is about allowing people to define their own work-life balances. And if it wasn’t working for her within Earth, then it was right that she went.

“For the company, of course, it meant a regrouping. But this all happened in the context of the end of Covid. There were people leaving, but there were also people arriving at the same time, so two steps forward, one step back. Sometimes it is just about grinding it out.”

“We’re very open and very actively wanting to play a part in changing the future look of the executive level in the music industry”

While Williamson attests that Covid was a “nightmare” for the entire live music industry, Palmer can at least take one significant positive from the dark period.

“I think what sums up what Earth is all about is the fact that we came through that pandemic and didn’t have to lay anybody off,” she contends. “We survived and thrived after major changes to the structure of the company in terms of agents and personnel. Even through all of those challenges, we kept at the forefront of our raison d’être to keep pushing our artists and young professionals forward.”

Diversity is another central tenet, with Palmer stressing Earth has always strived to employ a “very diverse workforce.” Furthermore, it invests in company-wide schemes to encourage diverse potential candidates to join the team.

“We’re keen to give people from all different backgrounds a chance to progress and grow,” says Palmer. “We have our own activation, where we hold a brunch and put together an equal number of professionals from each part of the live music ecosystem and an even number of Black participants. Out of that, a mentor-mentee relationship may come, but everyone who takes part is then available to those participants, ad infinitum, for questions, advice, recommendations, and connections.

“We’re very open and very actively wanting to play a part in changing the future look of the executive level in the music industry.”

“Within our company, we always wanted to make sure it had balance,” agrees Courtney. “And not only around gender, but different cultures and backgrounds as well.”

“There’s still a bit of a boys’ club mentality out there, which we’re still cracking away at trying to break”

Having completed its first decade, Courtney is proud of Earth’s impact on the business, even if its work is far from done.

“A lot has changed, but there’s still quite a long way to go,” she says. “Obviously, there are more successful female agents now than there have ever been and that is great to see, but it’s still nowhere near the level that it is on the male scale. There’s still a bit of a boys’ club mentality out there, which we’re still cracking away at trying to break.”

The Blue Planet
And there are other areas where the industry has much to learn on the human side, with Palmer bringing up a recent example.

“I felt quite sad when one of our agents had a baby and two of her female artists left her because she wasn’t doing her job as well as they would have liked, when actually she was still on her email with a one-month-old baby,” she sighs. “Rebecca and I took no maternity leave whatsoever – I was back on that email and so was she, because she could not take the foot off the gas – and I feel like the industry is so aggressive now, they’ll use anything to go after your roster.

“We’ve been through it all: personal tragedy and grief, and you have to keep going. I found it kind of entertaining to go on those online panels during the pandemic. I remember one very well-known agent saying he now had a newfound respect for single, working parents because he was trying to work at home with his kids around, and it was an absolute nightmare.

“I don’t feel like any concessions are ever made for personal circumstances, but that’s probably true of all business, and certainly that ‘we’re all in this together,’ finished the second that venue diaries and festival bookings were back open [after the pandemic].”

“We don’t really think of people as working for us; they work with us”

Williamson considers Earth’s relationship with other agencies to be “largely friendly,” but laments that people tend to work in isolation within the sector.

“That’s a strange quirk of our industry,” he observes. “There’s a subtle, unspoken competition that seems to make people not want to talk to each other very much.”

Overall, Williamson considers there to be “real positives” and “relatively perennial negatives” to working as an independent.

“It’s just about finding the balance between those things,” he asserts. “We work for ourselves – that’s a really important thing to point out – and we allow the people who we work with also to work for themselves. We don’t really think of people as working for us; they work with us.

“For me, independence is also about respecting the ecosystem that you work in and trying to take a slightly longer-term view of the talent that is maturing within that, rather than trying to leverage it up to the maximum earning potential that you can, and then what happens next year? Who cares?”

If anything, Williamson believes it is slightly easier to operate as an independent now than when Earth first started out.

“There are more independents around, so I think it’s more acceptable,” he reckons. “The way that we operate probably seems less unusual than it did at the beginning.”

“Many artists and creatives just want to make a living out of doing things the way they want to do it, and we provide a home where that’s okay”

He continues: “We were traditionally a bit sceptical about making statements and took the view that an agency was a background entity. People were interested in artists, and who cares who dresses the shop window? But the next period is about taking our place a little bit more.

“I think that we offer a reasonably unique position within the ecosystem and have some things to say. Sometimes there’s a real lack of leadership in the music industry, so we’d like to come out from under our rock a little bit.”

Gravitational Pull
Palmer’s priorities revolve around “attracting more people with likeminded views and continuing to grow and retain headline artists down to grassroots artists.

“We also have an appreciation that it’s not every artist’s goal to be the massive touring headliner,” she adds. “Many artists and creatives just want to make a living out of doing things the way they want to do it, and we provide a home where that’s okay.”

With the final word, Courtney views Earth Agency still being around for its 10th anniversary as cause for celebration in itself.

“I don’t think people ever expected us to still be here,” she adds. “I know there was some negativity that we heard when we started, but we ignored all of that and had the drive, ambition, and goal to be a great place for people to work, without applying pressure to deliver. I never had any doubt in the fact we would still be here in 10 years’ time.”

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Runway Artists founder Matt Hanner has told IQ about the agency’s strategy to invest in the next generation of agents.

Hanner (formerly of ATC Live, Coda) launched the London-based independent booking agency in the spring of 2020, against the backdrop of a global pandemic.

Notably, the agency’s first hires included emerging executives Amg Greig and Dotun Bolaji (now at Primary Talent), with Greig set to move from a freelance role to a full-time position in June.

Indeed, Hanner says recruiting and training young and diverse agents is baked into the firm’s game plan.

“I want to build a talented team that represents the artists we work with and society as a whole,” he tells IQ.

“Younger, digital native agents will definitely have the upper hand when it comes to identifying and nurturing new artists”

“Popular culture is not shaped by aging white men and as something of an underdog in the agency landscape I want to give Runway a fighting chance when we’re up against the competition – if artists can look across the table and see a company that reflects and understands them then hopefully they’ll give us a shot.”

In fact, Hanner believes that having young agents on the team is an advantage when it comes to scouting talent.

“Someone in their early 20s has only ever consumed music in an ecosystem in which DSPs are a major player; the associated shift in consumption habits has massively altered how people approach genre and that feeds into talent development and discovery,” he explains.

“Personally when looking at new artists I feel I can’t stray too far from my ‘lane’ as I don’t know the tastemakers outside certain genres but streaming has moved the goalposts completely and younger, digital native agents will definitely have the upper hand when it comes to identifying and nurturing new artists.”

The younger generation of Runway recently expanded with Louise McGovern (an agent who has previously worked for Midnight Mango and DHP) and intern Emer Marcus, who joined Heather Mosselson, Steve Backman, Zac Peters, Craig Wylie, Georgia Chrysanthopoulos and Karen Murray.

“The shift in age and gender balance of the company should bring a new dynamic”

But Runway’s commitment to diversity isn’t just reflected in its team. Having partnered with gender-equality initiative Keychange, the agency has pledged to maintain a minimum of 50% female-led or majority-female artists across the agency’s roster.

“Additionally, we are looking to address the racial imbalance across the artists we represent,” reads a mission statement on the agency’s website.

McGovern – who represents KEG, Alien Chicks, Spyres, Toby Sebastian, Jaws The Shark, Cable Street Collective, Dutch Criminal Record, Jade Helliwell and Kima Otung – says Runway’s DEI strategy is partly what attracted her to the company.

“They invest a lot into grassroots artists and venues and have a people-first approach, and equality, diversity and inclusion are important concepts to me, so I was thrilled to see them sign up to the Keychange pact,” she says. “In terms of their roster, they have a diverse range of artists, and I could see my roster and my future roster fitting in well there.”

Meanwhile, Marcus has been interning at Runway for nine months now and says her experience at the agency has been “crucial” in an industry that can be “daunting for young people to enter”.

“Talent and aptitude for the role are more important than experience, so assuming we’re getting that bit right once the doors are open we want to see people running through them,” says Hanner.

As an independent agency, Hanner believes Runway can give less experienced executives broader exposure to agency work and progress them quicker into an agent role.

“I think, in general, agencies have been hiring as young and cheap as they can for years with very different motivations,” he says. “You could argue it would be more financially prudent and less work to bring in experienced staff and those with a proven roster but one of the advantages to being an independent company is that we can be idealistic and take a gamble because we believe it’s the right thing to do.

“The shift in age and gender balance of the company should bring a new dynamic and I am hoping we empower our newly expanded team to drive Runway forward in an exciting direction,” Hanner says.

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