Women Booking Festivals: How To Get Booked - Maja Starcevic
Women are amazing. Here at Musosoup we want to celebrate the wonderful women working behind the scenes at some of the world’s best festivals!
As part of our ‘Women Booking Festivals’ series, we have sat down with inspiring ladies who book for some of the world’s largest events! We have also found out exactly what it is they look for in new bands and how to get in touch.
Find out all the tips, tricks and industry insights to getting your band on the main stages! First up is Maja Starcevic!
Tell us about yourself and what you do/who you book for?
Maja: At the moment I’m Main Stage booker for several times awarded Best Major Festival ‘EXIT’ (Serbia), ‘Sea Dance’ (Montenegro), ‘Sea Star’ (Croatia) and manager of lovely small festival ‘R:EVOL:UTION’ (Romania).
What sort of band/artists interest you when you book a festival?
Maja: All sort of artists, live bands, DJs, visual artists etc. EXIT festival has over 40 different stages and zones which is allowing us to think without boundaries of genres or art type.
Photo: Marko Edge
Name three things you look for in a band/artist before booking them:
1. Quality music
2. Quality live show
3. Good online presence
What can a band/artist do (other than music) to get themselves noticed by you?
Maja: Personally, [I] feel that it’s very important to be present at showcase festivals. Most of the acts that are discovered are discovered at showcase festivals. To make networking at the conferences [sic] and to send a lot of quality emails. This is besides the obvious presence on social media.
Does a band/artist need a manager before getting booked?
Maja: Definitely, yes! Don’t try to be superheroes and do everything on your own. Be an artist, do what you are the best at and encourage people to be part of your team to be the best in their job. Artists with [a] team are more likely to succeed…
Photo: Sea Dance Official
Do you feel bands/artists need to be signed to labels to get noticed by bookers?
Maja: Not really, especially not nowadays when there is no separation by genre. I’m not even sure have I ever checked the label of any artist, not even a DJ.
Do you take things such as social media presence, followers etc. into account when booking someone?
Maja: Yes, quite often ... it is very important how [an] artist is presented, and it is very important to know [an] artist [can] promote the show at least in some manner.
How could a band/artist contact you if they wanted to share their music with you?
Maja: Email is the best, as personally I’m not really active on social media, but even the best emails might end up in spam box therefore I would like to go back to the mentioned conferences and showcases.
Face to face introduction is the best way to present the artist, although seems the hardest.
But conferences offer so many opportunities to meet professionals from the industry that it’s a shame not to use them.
Advice for up and coming [bands], don’t miss conferences, meet with professionals introduce yourself and it will be easier to get a reply on email.
What is your opinion on ‘pay to play’ and festival slot competitions?
Maja: I’m not much supporter of ‘pay to play’ but festival slot competitions is something much more interesting. Although it’s [a] tough task to go through all the applications and to hear all the bands, it is a very interesting thing to do and you get to meet a lot of new artists, hear very cool new music which maybe wouldn’t cross the paths with you otherwise…
Are you always looking for bands to book? Or do you take suggestions/applications?
Maja: All the time we receive submissions from the agents and managers. Some agents are always having something new, fresh and quality to offer and, by the gained trust, you pay more attention to those acts. Besides the submissions we are constantly looking for the artists to book as mentioned showcases, media recommendations, online etc.
What can a band/artist do to help build their social presence?
Maja: I would rather say that this is not my area of expertise. I use the numbers and their social presence into presenting them to the team but not sure that I would be a good person to give advice in what to do.
As I’m only using the final result from the social media wouldn’t like to mislead anyone with a wrong advice, but the quality music is a must have.
Who has been your favourite artist to book?
Maja: To pick one out of so many is the tough question ... let me say that one of the artists that I’m really proud on booking is The Cure. I truly enjoyed booking Skepta, UNKLE and Monolink if I need to pick.
Who has been the most challenging artist you have booked?
Maja: Every artist in [their] own way [is] challenging, I might say that with Migos it was quite a challenge [we weren’t] sure ‘will they arrive’, ‘how will they arrive’, ‘who will arrive’? And it happened that day before Cardi B got a baby [sic] so we got only 2 members out of 3. [I was] really happy we managed to overcome the problematic parts and to enjoy an amazing show.
Photo: The FADER
What has been the best live performance you have ever seen – and where was it?
Maja: It is so difficult to pick only one, so many things are making an impact on the best live performance that it’s very difficult to pick one, but a special place in my heart is kept for The XX’s show at Brixton Academy.
You can connect with Maja on LinkedIn HERE
Words by Jasmine Hodge