The Glasstonbury Festival Simulation

Sai’s Agent

Introduction

Over the last 8 months, you have been the managing agent of an upcoming solo music artist, ‘Sai’.
Sai is the stage name of a 23-year-old, mixed Asian and Black singer from South-East London.

Sai’s work has been influenced by the garage, jungle, grime, and pop music genres. Her style has
sometimes been described as “a fusion of grime and electro-pop”. Despite being young, a month ago
she released a single which made it to #4 in the UK charts, and to #16 in the competitive US charts.
This is a remarkable achievement for someone relatively unknown just a few months ago. She is
thought to be one of the rising stars of the UK music scene, and within a year or two she will likely be
established as one of the UK’s leading recording artists. Her fans are typically younger, and edgy.

Your role

You work as a Managing Agent for a large managing agent company representing music artists. You
are relatively junior, but you have several clients who show promise – including Sai. As Sai’s
managing agent, you are to represent the manage the artist’s business contracts, bookings, and
public relations. This includes negotiating contracts on Sai’s behalf, maximising her interest.

This is an important role. The financial and popular success of the artists you represent determine
your own career. You work on a commission, and so the higher the performance fees of your clients,
the higher your income. And the more famous the artist, the easier it will be for you to represent
more famous artists in the future, again maximising your income and prestige.

The negotiation simulation

Two weeks ago you were approached by the ‘Aviemore Festival’ who offered Sai £157,000 to
perform at the festival. The Aviemore Festival is relatively small, with around 80,000 attendees.
However, last week you were also approached by organisers of the Glasstonbury Festival. This is the
UK’s largest and most prestigious music festival. It is held every summer and hosts around 200,000
revellers. However, this festival runs at the same time as the Aviemore Festival. As such, you could
not book Sai for both.

Objectively, for any upcoming artist trying to maximise their exposure, attending the Glassonbury
Festival would be a far better choice. Glassonbury is an amazing opportunity for your client, Sai, for
exposure to a wider audience and to help cement her place as a leading UK music artist.

Negotiations BUSI1632, led by Dr Scott Tindal

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 The Glasstonbury Festival Simulation
Sai’s Agent

This negotiation simulation is a meeting between yourself, as the managing agent of Sai, and the
Artist Booking Managers of the Glasstonbury Organising Committee. Your task is to secure a booking
for Sai to perform at Glasstonbury Music Festival.

Issues to negotiate

1. Performance Fee

One of the most important issues to negotiate is the performance fee. This is the fee that the festival
organisers will pay for Sai to perform at the festival. Typically, the more ‘famous’ an artist is, the
higher their performance fee – which can run into millions!

Sai is a rising star, but not quite yet as famous as other artists and so may not quite command such a
gigantic fee. Yet she has demonstrated great promise and will likely become the UK’s next leading
recording artist. If the festival organisers want the UK’s next leading artist to perform at their festival
– they will need to pay.

Sai has already been offered £157,000 to perform at the Aviemore Festival. Ideally you would like to
achieve a sum higher than this offer from Glasstonbury. However, Aviemore is a smaller festival
compared with Glasstonbury. The value of the exposure at Glasstonbury means that you may accept
a lower performance fee than what Aviemore offered in order to get your client the largest exposure
possible at Glasstonbury. However, there are limits, and the lowest you would go is £142,000. This is
your ’reservation point’.

Table 1 below shows price ranges with associated points. Your goal is to accumulate the highest
number of points possible. Agreeing to a higher performance fee will give you more ‘points’ because
you want to secure for your client the highest performance fee possible. For example, if you agree
on a fee of £162,500 you would be awarded 18 points (because that is in the £162,000 - £166,999
price range). Yet if you agree to £145,000 you would be given 3 points.

Table 1: Performance fee bands with points:

Fee range Points

>£172,000 20
£167,000 - £171,999 18
£162,000 - £166,999 16
£157,000 - £161,999 14
£152,000 - £156,999 12
£147,000 - £151,999 6
£142,000 - £146,999 3
<£142,000 No deal

Negotiations BUSI1632, led by Dr Scott Tindal

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 The Glasstonbury Festival Simulation
Sai’s Agent

1. Other terms of the agreement

Along with the performance fee, there are other issues regarding the terms that need agreement.

Stage: You want Sai to get maximum exposure. As such, you want to negotiate to get Sai to perform
on the festival’s main stage in front of the largest possible audience, not one of the smaller side
stages. The festival organisers may be interested in giving Sai the main stage, too, of course. In which
case you will be both in agreement. If not, you may have to negotiate to get this. This issue is so
important that you will be awarded 15 points if you can negotiate this! However, achieving this may
require making trade-offs. For example, to get the festival organisers to give Sai the main stage, you
may have to accept a lower performance fee or trade-off other issues to get this.

Dressing Room and other perks: More famous artists typically get their own dressing room, while
other artists must share their dressing room with other artists. You are keen to have your client
treated as best as you can, and want her to have her own dressing room. She is a rising star, after all!
This would be worth 6 points. You would also like Sai to have fresh-cut flowers, champagne in her
dressing room, and for her to be picked up in a luxury car. Each of these are worth 1 point.

Meet & Greet fans: Glasstonbury have various competitions with many local radio stations across
the country where the prize is tickets to the festival, and a backstage ‘Meet and Greet’ with various
artists performing at the festival. This competition is very good for boosting Sai’s public image
because competition winners typically share photos on social media and talk positively about the
experience with their friends.

Social media campaign: An important part of the festival promotion and advertisement. You would
like Sai to be part of our social media campaign where the festival organisers will take professional
photographs of the artist and use the image as part of their festival promotion material. This is good
for Sai’s public profile, but also like an important issue to the festival organisers….

Table 2: List of other terms of the agreement, with associated points.

Issue Points
Main stage performance 15
Side stage performance -2

Sole dressing room 6

Shared dressing room -3

Flowers in the dressing room 1

Champaign in the dressing room 1
A luxury car to pick up artist 1

Backstage Meet & Greet fans 3

No backstage Meet & Greet fans 0

Social media campaign 3

No social media campaign -3

Negotiations BUSI1632, led by Dr Scott Tindal

Do not share this case with anyone outside your class: preserve its integrity for future students.
 The Glasstonbury Festival Simulation
Sai’s Agent

Final advice:

This is an integrative negotiation. While there are several issues to negotiate to reach an
agreement, it is important to keep in mind that this is not a distributive negotiation: You are not in
competition with each other. Instead, this is an integrative negotiation: both parties will mutually
gain from this agreement because the festival will secure an excellent upcoming performance artist,
and Sai will get exposure at a large and prestigious festival that will help her career.

There are mutual interests. Not every item to negotiate is a competition. There are some issues that
both parties will want.

Do not resort to haggling. Some issues will need to be resolved because the parties may not want
the same thing. In this case, try not to resort to haggling – pushing the other party down as far as
they will go. Instead, try to trade issues against each other to find a combination of items in which
both parties gain from. For example, it may be that you will offer the Festival Booking Manager a
little less in performance fee in exchange for getting them to agree to a performance on the main
stage. What combination of items can you agree to reach an agreement in which both parties will
gain?

Agreement:

We are agreed on a performance fee of £____________________________ (at _____ points)

We are also agreed that:

❖ _

❖ _

❖ _

❖ _

❖ _

❖ _

❖ _

The total points for Glasstonbury Festival Artist Booking Manager is ________________/50 Points.

Negotiations BUSI1632, led by Dr Scott Tindal

Do not share this case with anyone outside your class: preserve its integrity for future students.