agencies
Deadmau5 has signed with CAA for representation in all areas.
The Canadian electronic music producer will work closely with CAA on his future endeavors, including global touring, gaming and tech-focused efforts, among other opportunities.
“Deadmau5 has redefined the intersection of music, art, and technology, and we’re thrilled to be a part of his next chapter,” Deadmau5’s agent at CAA, Ferry Rais-Shaghagh, tells Billboard.
Given Deadmau5’s many projects across music, tech, art and beyond, his move to CAA was a function of the agency’s ability to offer opportunities with its other divisions in addition to live touring. The artist was previously represented by UTA, who he signed with in 2020.
Deadmau5 has a long list of accomplishments going back two decades. His debut album was released in 2005, and in 2011, he became the first electronic artist to play the mainstage at Lollapalooza. He’s since played major festivals including Coachella, Tomorrowland, Electric Daisy Carnival, Ultra Music Festival, Outside Lands, Creamfields UK, and Bonnaroo. In 2022, his set as Kx5 with Kaskade set a record for the biggest ticketed global headliner dance event of 2022, according to Billboard Boxscore.
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His catalog has 1.7 billion on-demand official U.S. streams where Deadmau5 billed as the primary artist, according to Luminate. Hits including “Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff,” “Strobe” and the Kaskade collaboration “I Remember” helped introduce electronic music to mainstream audiences, with his music and live performances also infusing boundary pushing technology. His 2019/20 U.S. cubev3 tour, featuring production of his own design and implementation, ranked in the Top 10 of Pollstar’s top tours globally.
Meanwhile, his label, Mau5trap, has released music since 2007.
The artist, whose real name is Joel Zimmerman, is managed by Dean Wilson at Circuit Group/Seven20. His team also includes attorney is Dina LaPolt from LaPolt Law, P.C. and publicist Alexandra Greenberg at Falcon Publicity PR.
Presumably, a lot of artists want their shows to be as environmentally friendly as possible. But with many factors contributing to a sustainable performance — from power sources to food vendors to fan transportation — it’s challenging for an artist to put on a truly green event without involving the many partners it takes to put on a show.
Now, a new initiative from U.K. live music advocacy group LIVE (Live Music Industry Venues and Entertainment) aims to help.
Together with representatives from AEG, Live Nation, Wasserman, WME, CAA, UTA and other major players in the touring industry, including U.K. promoter Kilimanjaro Live, LIVE has written a collection of “green clauses” — suggested language that can be written into contracts between artists and agents, agents and promoters, and other agreements in order to produce sustainability-minded shows from the ground up.
These green clauses offer recommendations for creating energy efficiency; waste reduction; water conservation; prioritizing plant-based, local and sustainable food; encouraging attendees to travel to the show using lower carbon emission transport; offering sustainable and ethical merch; and much more.
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The project comes from LIVE’s working group, LIVE Green, which is led by Carol Scott — the principal sustainability advocate at global event producer TAIT — along with LIVE Green’s impact consultant Ross Patel. The suggested contractual language was launched on the LIVE Green website in October, and Patel tells Billboard that “there is absolutely a commitment to adopt them” within the industry, adding that “in some cases, those conversations are already happening.”
Along with the clauses, LIVE Green has created a resource hub with information on how to execute sustainability practices and reduce carbon emissions at shows. These free guidelines primarily reflect the needs and capabilities of projects in the U.K. and North America, although Patel says the hub maintains a high level of relevancy for most event organizers, touring artists and their teams globally.
Here, Patel talks about the goals of the clauses, how sustainability-minded tours by major artists have helped lay the groundwork and why, in his words, “doing something is always going to be better than doing nothing.”
What were the conversations like in putting these clauses together, particularly given that you were working with global entities like Live Nation, AEG and the big agencies?
To a large degree, there wasn’t any disagreement in the primary content of what we were asking for, in terms of key things that need to be addressed, such as energy, power, water, food and transport. Those aspects were not really commented on. The red lining was to get clauses more in line with the tone of [each company’s] existing contract templates. They have to build them into contracts they already use, so a lot of it was just trying to make it fit.
What was the process like, with so many participants whose needs and wants are related, but also specific?
There was one sticking point we managed to resolve, which was the purpose of what this template was being designed for. It’s to provide something for anyone to have access to and to adopt and adapt as they see fit. In the end, we opted for an all-parties, best-endeavors wording, because that’s the thing that is going to be the most relevant to the most people.
What were the sticking points?
Of course, if you’re an agent, you’re going to want to see something that’s in favor of the artist. If you’re a promoter or venue, you’re going to want something more in favor of the venue or promotions company. As a working group, and certainly from LIVE Green’s perspective, we felt an all-parties and best-endeavors approach was the best way to start, with getting something out in the industry that wasn’t going to be a shock to the major corporates. We want them to participate in this, so that when someone now sees this in a contract, or when they now speak to each other to figure out how they want [a contract to look], there’s a starting point that isn’t in favor of either side.
That makes sense.
The next practical step is, let’s say Live Nation and WME — because they do so much business together — they will have templates they’ve already agreed on and negotiated. There’s a baseline that they’re happy with. They do that all the time, with lots of different clauses. This just happens to be one that is focused on sustainability that wasn’t in contracts before.
How useful have sustainably-minded tours by artists like Billie Eilish and Coldplay been in creating examples for what you’re doing?
It feels like the industry is ready for this because we have case studies of big booking agents, big promoters and big artists actioning what we’re now sharing with everyone else. They might have been just one-offs, but they’re operating. [It demonstrates] that it’s an option.
If a venue hosts a Coldplay show, and that contract states the venue must do certain things for sustainability, then the following week, that venue has another artist who also has these clauses in their contracts, the hope is that those adjustments will eventually become permanent.
Now, more often than not, larger venues tend to make the adjustment for the show, then revert to whatever their previous installation was. With a more consistent request of these changes, inevitably it will make sense for them to keep these things in place.
So this small group of artists who are showing shows can be done this way are important, in terms of being a proof of concept?
Exactly. There’s more and more examples of [these things working]. Hopefully this will put us in a position where the impetus is on everyone to help deliver these things. Some people will be further along than others. Some artists might already have contracts that far surpass what we’ve introduced. Some promoters or venues might already have their own sustainability criteria that’s far more developed than what we’re asking artists to sign up to.
The point is that we’re hoping to expedite the conversation. Where someone might be further along, they can share what’s being done. There is now almost a contractual recognition to get them to where the other person is, to bring everybody up.
Ross Patel
Courtesy of Ross Patel
To what extent do you think people feel more inclined to participate given that they’re already living with the realities of climate change?
There’s a number of reasons, and that’s definitely one. I don’t think anyone can deny — well, there are still people that seem to be able to deny climate change somehow — but I think the majority of people have witnessed and experienced the impacts of climate change. Certainly, from an industry perspective, there is an ever-increasing and urgent need to acknowledge and address this and act, because we’re seeing how it’s affecting tours. We’re seeing the very real impacts of flooding, droughts, travel issues. We are losing business as an industry due to climate change.
That’s something I think people are seeing on a terrifyingly regular basis, and therefore it’s at the top of the agenda. With the increased buoyancy of the live industry [after the pandemic], people have more to contribute, because it is a cost implication. It’s one that needs to be factored in as part of doing business. I wish we could have been in this position to do something earlier, but we’re here now, so let’s just move the dial as quickly as we possibly can.
How are advancements in technology helping the cause?
We now have proven, stable technology that allows you to run festival stages and live events on battery cells and don’t require diesel generators. We did have those three or five years ago. Hopefully through proven technological advances within the industry, we can not only introduce the audience to that which excites them and gives them a feeling of positivity and safety and hopefulness, but we can move those case studies and proof of concepts into policy and make these things contractually obligated. We can’t do that specific thing yet, but that is what I would like to see down the line. But that will be very much market dependent, artist dependent, event dependent.
How enforceable are these clauses as the templates stand? What will be the tipping point for getting these things into contracts as a legal obligation?
That will have to be in line with policy. We could, for example, write that if an event doesn’t provide fuel cells, then the contract is null and void. But is that a reality for that show, in that market, on that tour? Possibly, or possibly it just isn’t. There has to be a degree of people acknowledging what’s being asked of them in specific areas, and then, more importantly, using the resource hub that LIVE Green has developed.
But using best endeavors means you’re looking at what’s in the clauses and doing anything you possibly can to respond to what’s in them. Doing something is always going to be better than doing nothing.
Given the incoming administration in the U.S. and its anticipated loosening of environmental regulations, do you feel or fear there will be decreased momentum around this project and projects such as these?
My personal feeling is that the initiative will have a greater degree of support from the industry because of the election. Of course, any climate-related agenda now will be challenging to uphold, but the creative industries still have an opportunity to influence and drive audience behavior change through positive messaging and innovative climate solution implementation. There may not be a policy demand or regulation in place for a particular action, but that doesn’t and shouldn’t stop us from progressing anyway. It’s what the consumer, fans and wider industry want!
Singer-songwriter Benson Boone has signed with WME for global representation in all areas. Boone gained popularity with the release of his viral hit “Beautiful Things” in January. The track has been an international hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200 for seven weeks and leading the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart for eight […]
When he first started his own agency, Andrew Kelsey worked out of a tiny, windowless office in San Francisco’s Mission District. He had no experience as an agent, but he did have a passion for underground electronic music and an ambition to get bookings for artists who were making it.
Twenty years later, Kelsey has a staff of 18, offices in San Francisco and Brooklyn — both of which boast natural lighting — and a roster of more than 140 house, techno and indie electronic artists whose “underground” sound has, over the last two decades, become the prevailing style of commercial electronic music in the United States.
Kelsey’s agency, the independently owned and operated Liaison Artists, now books 5,000 shows a year, including at major festivals like EDC Las Vegas, Ultra Music Festival and Coachella, where this weekend, Liaison artists Carlita, Folamour, The Blessed Madonna, Bicep, ANOTR, Eli & Fur, Ame and Innelea are all slated to play.
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“I thought it was going to be big,” Kelsey tells Billboard over Zoom, “but not this big.”
As tastes have shifted toward the style of music Liaison has always championed, the agency has grown in tandem. The company doubled in size just before the pandemic, then doubled again when live shows returned. The staff now includes eight agents, including Kelsey and his partner, Mariesa Stephens, who joined the agency in 2008 after meeting Kelsey through the Bay Area nightlife world.
Following the pandemic, veteran agents Emma Hoser and Meryl Luzzi joined the team, bringing in clients including house titan Jamie Jones, techno pioneers Adam Beyer and Nicole Moudaber and artists from the revered Anjunabeats and Anjunadeep labels. Beyond the agents, Liaison employes four accountants and several coordinators who, Kelsey says, “make the machine run.”
There was no machine to speak of when Kelsey moved to San Francisco in 1998. He arrived with one bag from his native Buffalo, N.Y., where he’d booked clubs while earning a criminal justice degree and interning at the courthouse. (“I just had a moment of like, ‘this is miserable,’” he now says of the experience. ”) In San Francisco, he found a thriving electronic music culture and knew he had to be a part of it.
But with minimal experience, there was no clear “in.” Eventually, Kelsey hustled his way into an internship at Urb Magazine, a job for which he’d “bomb the city with materials” like CDs, posters and show flyers. This led to a four-year run doing distribution at Om Records, where – after observing the label’s in-house booking agent – he decided he wanted to be an agent, too.
When his boss at Om told him no, Kelsey “quit on the spot and started an agency with no experience,” he says. He made inroads by seeking out the music he liked and persuading a few artists that, with his “absolute dedication to working hard and just making it succeed,” he could represent them. Liaison officially launched in 2004, with Kelsey signing his first big artist, Claude VonStroke, in 2006.
Around that time, Kelsey spent a summer traveling to festivals throughout Europe, then did a five-month stint in Berlin, where he was converted to the religion of techno. (He also opened a Liaison office in Berlin from 2007-2009.) The experience in Europe “just changed my life,” he says. “It was another epiphany of wanting to bring that music to the U.S.”
At that time in the United States, the house and techno scene mainly existed at warehouse parties and smaller clubs in cities like New York and Los Angeles. Then-nascent festivals like EDC Las Vegas and Ultra Music Festival in Miami were booking the genres, but Kelsey says most festival stages for this music were “1,000 capacity with no production, in the mud, on the side, just a complete afterthought. There wasn’t even any hospitality onstage, just a couple of warm beers in a dirty cooler.”
Then everything changed. The EDM boom of the early to mid-2010s brought electronic music to mainstream consciousness in the United States, where it became a major economic force. When the boom’s bombastic “mainstage” sound cooled off, it was replaced in popularity by house, techno and the many subgenres that exist under these two styles. That’s when things shifted for Liaison.
“I’d say in 2015, it really started moving,” says Kelsey. Suddenly, artists who’d previously been playing 500 capacity clubs were getting booked for much larger stages. San Diego’s CRSSD Festival launched in 2014 to service the sound, and Coachella launched its club-style Yuma Stage in 2013, with that space growing from 1,500 to 7,000 capacity over the last 11 years. Anjunadeep showcases used to max out at 500 people; now they happen at Colorado’s 10,000-capacity Red Rocks Amphitheater.
Andrew Kelsey and Mariesa Stephens
Krescent Carasso
Chicago’s ARC Music Festival, which features house and techno exclusively, launched in 2021, with longtime Liaison client Honey Dijon headlining in 2022. This weekend the artist (who won a 2023 Grammy for her work on Beyoncé’s dance-oriented Renaissance) will also play Coachella’s new Quasar Stage, which will host three to four extended dance sets.
“I remember watching the festival change, with [Coachella co-founder] Paul [Tollett] and company putting underground dance music artists on [the festival’s massive] Sahara stage, which was kind of the next organic step for this music,” says Kelsey. “I feel like all the major promoters have been in lockstep… We used to do 200 capacity shows together and all grew together with this music.”
With this growth has come revenue, and competition. In the earlier days, Stephens says a $40,000 fee for a bigger name underground artist “was often the ceiling.” These artists were usually relegated to 2,000 capacity rooms and smaller side stages at major festivals.
Now, “the entire game has changed,” Stephens continues. “Underground artists are selling out Madison Square Garden and 25,000 cap stadiums” and playing festival headlining sets for tens of thousands of people. She says “artist fees have certainly followed suit.”
Naturally, major agencies have expanded their rosters to include these formerly niche sounds.
“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t deeply competitive,” Stephens says. “For many years, the majors were less of a concern for us, but there has been a major shift recently where the music Liaison has been nurturing since our inception has become wildly popular, and things did change.”
While some of Liaison’s artists “did leave in search of greener pastures,” she continues, “they were few and far between, and most of our core artists have been very loyal to us.” (With Liaison specializing in North and South America, all of its artists have different agencies in Europe and the rest of the world which Liaison works in partnership with.)
Kelsey says it’s Liaison’s authenticity and its passion for, commitment to and knowledge of this type of music that inspires artists to stay.
“Liaison embodies the perfect blend of underground authenticity and mainstream appeal,” says Dominik Ceylan, managing partner of Temporary Secretary, a German artist management group with clients, including Dixon and Ame, who are represented by Liaison in North America. “If you’re passionate about music and see your booking agency as an integral part of an ecosystem dedicated to nurturing artists and helping them thrive, Liaison is your go-to partner.”
Currently, the agency is particularly focused on developing artists’ brands, with Dixon’s Transmoderna and Bicep’s Chroma – both of which feature custom multimedia experiences — giving Liaison the chance to “bring an artist’s vision to life in a very 360-degree way,” says Stephens. As one of the few Black agents in electronic music, she’s also particularly excited about developing Francis Mercier’s Deep Root Records family of artists. “Going to parties filled with black and brown faces [is] deeply inspirational for me,” she says
Both Stephens and Kelsey agree that the market for the music they specialize in only seems to be growing, with its name at this point only used for lack of a better word.
“There’s really,” Kelsey says, “not much underground about it.”
The $10 billion-a-year sports agency business is almost as hard to break into as the big leagues themselves — the gatekeepers are entrenched and powerful, and the cost of competing with them can be prohibitive. Right now, though, a growing disconnect between athletes and agents — players want their agents to find them lucrative ways to leverage their fame, while agents want to focus on the high-dollar contracts — is creating opportunities for entrepreneurs to disrupt the business. Some of them are coming from the music industry, leveraging their own cultural cachet to find clients and opportunities, including Jay-Z, whose Roc Nation includes a sports agency business; Young Money APAA Sports; and Quality Control Sports. More music stars are on their way this year too.
The business is now dominated by five firms — CAA Sports, Wasserman Sports, WME Sports, Excel Sports and Octagon — which together generate half of the $6 billion in commissions that the top 20 firms collected, according to Forbes. On the surface, these companies operate a bit like music and film/TV agencies, where executives identify opportunities for their clients and negotiate on their behalf. But the vast majority of the money comes from long-term player contracts that deliver giant commissions, and many athletes think this leads agents to ignore sports-adjacent opportunities and investments. Roc Nation and Rich Paul’s Klutch Sports, built on their reputation for combining sports and entertainment, used this to challenge the entrenched players, successfully enough that they are now ranked No. 7 and No. 9 by revenue, respectively, according to Forbes.
Does that mean other musicians and music executives will follow their lead — or even that they should? Launching a sports agency is expensive — it can take between $40 million and $50 million, according to Forbes, which is a big bet even for most stars. So that usually means finding additional investors, in the form of financial backers or other entrepreneurs, plus athletes who are either looking for an agent or a new one.
Roc Nation, which had a rock-solid source of both cash and credibility in Jay-Z, entered the sports business in 2013, five years after the company’s launch, with four-time All-Star Yankees second baseman Robinson Canó. Its sports division now has 190 clients, including Charlotte Hornets point guard LaMelo Ball and New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley, and about $2 billion in player salaries and another $500 million in sponsorships and nonsalary deals, according to Forbes, which estimates that the company’s sports operations generate $203 million a year. (Roc Nation declined to comment on its finances.) Klutch Sports, where Paul is agent and manager for LeBron James, as well as a board member for Live Nation Entertainment, generates about half that.
That kind of success brings competition, including from music executives Kevin “Coach K” Lee and Pierre “P” Thomas, who launched Quality Control Sports in 2019, four years before HYBE purchased their company. Their agency’s clients include New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara and Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Richie James. The Lil Wayne-owned Young Money APAA Sports has also put points on the board by signing University of Miami’s Leonard Taylor III ahead of the 2024 NFL draft.
That doesn’t mean every venture succeeds, though. Jeezy started his Sports 99 agency in 2019, but it closed during the pandemic, and Kanye West’s Donda Sports, launched in 2022 with basketball players Aaron Donald and Jaylen Brown, imploded within months after West made a series of antisemitic comments.
The fast-paced evolution of both the sports and music businesses may continue to tempt musicians with money and influence, but anyone who enters the sports agency business, no matter how famous, will probably do so as an underdog.
This story will appear in the Feb. 10, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Demi Lovato has made the move to CAA. The Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter and actress, who was most recently with UTA, is now represented in all areas worldwide by CAA.
Lovato rose to fame as a Disney star in roles on Camp Rock and Sonny with a Chance. The artist released her first album Don’t Forget in 2008, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, and has since received two Grammy nominations, four Billboard Music Awards nominations and three Brit Award nominations for her work. All seven of Lovato’s studio albums have appeared on the Billboard 200 chart and reached the top 10.
Lovato has accumulated 36 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, including four top 10 titles: “This Is Me,” with Joe Jonas (No. 9 in 2008); “Skyscraper” (No. 10 in 2011); “Heart Attack” (No. 10 in 2013); and “Sorry Not Sorry” (No. 6 in 2017). Eight of her singles have been top 10 hits on the Pop Airplay chart, from 18 overall chart titles. Two singles, 2012’s “Give Your Heart a Break” and 2017’s “Sorry Not Sorry,” reached No. 1 on that chart.
Throughout her career, Lovato has earned 9.7 million equivalent album units, sold 23.9 million song downloads and her songs have collectively registered 7.7 billion U.S. on-demand streams in the U.S., according to Luminate.
Next month, Lovato will release Revamped, featuring rock versions of the artist’s hit songs. With all new vocals and production, the 10-track album will allow Lovato to reimagine her career-defining songs with a fresh perspective that reflects her current artistic vision.
Lovato has also been celebrated for her deeply personal documentaries, 2017’s Simply Complicated and 2021’s Dancing with the Devil. She currently serves as Global Citizen’s official ambassador for mental health, with a special focus on vulnerable communities around the world and, in 2013, Lovato became a New York Times best-selling author with a book of affirmations titled Staying Stong: 365 Days a Year.
Lovato will next be seen on MTV’s Video Music Awards where she’s nominated for two awards and will perform.
Billboard recently reported that Lovato parted ways with manager Scooter Braun in July. Lovato signed with Braun and his SB Projects firm in 2019. She was previously managed by Phil McIntyre of PhilyMack. One source close to the situation told Billboard it was time for Lovato to go in a new direction, even though she was thankful for her time with SB Projects.
Lovato will continue to be represented by Rob Cohen at Carroll Guido Groffman Cohen Bar & Karalian and align Public Relations.
Amid a production halt during a double strike, major talent agency CAA is undergoing a round of layoffs.
About sixty employees are set to be impacted — including agents, executives and support staff — within the next week, a source tells The Hollywood Reporter. The figure is a relatively small percentage of the thousands of staffers that work at the Century City-based representation giant led by Kevin Huvane, Richard Lovett and Bryan Lourd.
Multiple departments had been evaluating staffing levels even prior to when the Writers Guild of America strike began on May 2. When performer’s union SAG-AFTRA joined the strike on July 13, Hollywood settled in to a long summer as the dealmaking ecosystem ground to a halt.
Several talent agencies have cut staff in the ensuing months as the guilds faced off with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of studios. For instance, Endeavor, the owner of fellow “Big 3” agency WME and fashion-focused IMG, estimated on August 8 that the impact of the actors’ and writers’ strikes would be about $25 million per month in revenue.
Talent and literary agency Verve, which reps many scribes, cut about 60 percent of its assistants and 3 agents in late May. And Big 3 firm UTA had already made a round of cuts, which it described as a single digit percentage of a workforce that totals 2,000 employees, in February.
Hollywood’s agencies went through retrenchment and conducted notable layoffs or furloughs during the COVID-19 shutdowns in the middle of 2020, also at a time of a widespread production halt. At that time, in July 2020, CAA said it cut 90 agents and executives and further furloughed 275 assistants and other staffers.
Since that time, CAA made the most consequential move in the Hollywood talent agency space, acquiring rival firm ICM in a megadeal that closed last June and added 425 of its employees to the payroll, with 105 staffers cut. At the time, the combined company was said to have 3,200 employees in 25 countries.
Deadline earlier reported CAA’s planned cuts on Thursday.
This article was originally published by THR.com.
Musician David Kushner has signed with WME in all areas. The Chicago-born Kushner continues to be managed by Brent Shows of ALTAR MGMT. In April, Kushner broke onto the Billboard Hot 100 chart with his single “Daylight” and plans to take his talent on the road this fall. After releasing his debut EP Footprint I […]
Two major forces in talent representation are coming together via the merger of Agency For the Performing Arts (APA) and Artist Group International (AGI).
Announced today (June 21), this partnership launches the newly formed Independent Artist Group (IAG). The company will have offices in Los Angeles, New York, Nashville and Atlanta.
Current APA president Jim Osborne will lead IAG as CEO. Dennis Arfa, founder and CEO of AGI, will serve as chairman of IAG’s music division. AGI president Marsh Vlasic will serve as vice-chair of this music division, with Vlasic, Arfa, AGI COO Jarred Arfa, AGI president of touring Adam Kornfeld and the rest of the company’s senior agents and staff all joining IAG. As reported by Digital Music News, APA recently let go of several of its music agents.
The creation of IAG follows an agreement between APA and Yucaipa Entertainment LLC, a private investment firm owned by Ron Burkle that, as DMN reports, acquired AGI in January 2012 and made a major non-equity investment into APA in September 2012.
Arfa founded touring agency AGI 35 years ago. The company delivers IAG a client roster that includes Billy Joel, Metallica, Def Leppard, Rod Stewart, Motley Crue, Linkin Park, Jane’s Addiction, Darryl Hall & John Oates, Norah Jones, Neil Young, The Strokes, Smashing Pumpkins, Ghost, Elvis Costello, Cage The Elephant and Five Finger Death Punch.
APA touring music clients coming to IAG include 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige, Ms. Lauryn Hill, 2 Chainz, NE-YO, Key Glock, $not, Kamasi Washington, D’Angelo, blackbear, JAX, Cypress Hill, Bryce Vine, Jon Bellion and Robert Glasper.
The merger follows recent AGI and APA collaborations involving AGI clients Billy Joel, Daryl Hall, Perry Farrell, GHOST and Billy Corgan.
“Dennis Arfa and his exceptional colleagues at AGI are revered in the industry, having built a spectacular artist roster and a sterling reputation,” Osborne says in a statement. “The great news is we have already established a tremendous working relationship with them through shared representation on some of their most valued artists. This new partnership with AGI and our rebrand to Independent Artist Group (IAG)is another major step that elevates us within the agency landscape…and we are not done yet!”
“This was the natural next step in our evolution and made in the best interests of our valued artists,” adds Arfa. “We have admired how Jim Osborne and their colleagues have been market leaders in creating brand expanding, non-touring revenue opportunities for their clients and we are excited to build on that success with them and look forward to integrating under the Independent Artist Group (IAG) banner.”
UTA has officially set up shop in Atlanta.
Along with its partner company KLUTCH Sports Group, the agency opened its new Atlanta bureau Wednesday (March 22) to extend its ability to discover and serve artists, athletes, musicians and brands in the region. Steve Cohen, Rob Gibbs and Arthur Lewis will serve as co-heads of the new office.
“Atlanta is an entertainment and cultural hub, and planting our flag here gives us the ability to support clients with investments and opportunities across the city’s growing creative ecosystem,” said Cohen and Gibbs in a joint statement.
UTA will offer representation in Atlanta across its multitude of divisions, including music, sports, film, television, digital talent, marketing, gaming, fine arts and more. This includes advising top global brands based in the Southeast on a range of growth initiatives, including ways to partner with the creative community.
“Atlanta is a vibrant city for music, sports and arts, and there is a ripe opportunity to create another center of gravity for film and television,” said UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer in a statement. “We are excited to bring our full range of services to the community of talented artists, athletes, musicians and creators who call the Southeast their home.”
The new office is located at 1401 Peachtree Street in Midtown Atlanta and occupies nearly 20,000 square feet across three floors. It was designed by the firm Hastings Architecture, which also designed UTA’s office in Nashville.
The Atlanta bureau will additionally feature a fine art gallery called The UTA Artist Space to showcase programming from the Atlanta art community and across UTA’s global fine arts roster. The inaugural show will feature Atlanta-based artist and musician Lonnie Holley in the first exhibition of his work in the city in over 10 years. Entitled “The Eyes Were Always on Us,” the exhibition will feature sculptures constructed from found materials in the tradition of African-American sculpture. The gallery is open to the public Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
UTA also boasts offices in Beverly Hills, Nashville, New York, Chicago and London.