How to choose Artistes for your Events?

Coming out of the fiasco with last weekend's One Caribbean Music Festival's event which saw a number of prominent acts, including Vybz Kartel withdrawing at the last minute, is another major question - how to choose artistes for your event? Like choosing promoters for your event, we see this question as very important.

Over the years, we have had to choose artistes for both private and corporate events, and while some of these events were not as large as the One Caribbean Music Festival, we took great care in selecting our artistes and even Masters of Ceremonies for these events. One of our largest event in recent times was the 2023 37th annual ACCP AGM & Conference, which required us to be a part of the selection process for certain performers. Because of the scope of this event, these artistes were carefully selected to meet the event's objectives.

Artistes can make or break your events; they are there to create a positive atmosphere, engage attendees and simply make the overall experience exciting. Therefore, it is very critical to ask yourselves some important questions:

• What are your goals for this event?

• Can these artistes meet your events' goals?

• Are these selected artistes the best or should you look at other competitors?

• Can these artistes communicate your main messages clearly?

• Do these artistes fit into your event's budget?

• Are the selected artistes' fees negotiable?

• Do we need external artistes or will the available local artistes be sufficient?

• If the decision is to utilize external artistes, do these artistes understand the laws of the country?

• What details should be included in the performance contract?

We can go on with many more questions; however, the above questions are sufficient to give you a good head start with choosing artistes for your events. At times, this can be a very easy task; however, at other times, it can be extremely daunting.