Owner, The Windish Agency
Chicago, IL
www.windishagency.com

What do you do as a booker?
I set up concerts for musicians. I work exclusively with certain artists for certain territories in the world. So for an artist such Hot Chip, every time they play a show in North American (USA, Canada, Mexico) and South America, I am the person that handles the booking from the artist's side. I contact promoters (the people who rent or run venues) and discuss the possible dates and negotiate the artist fee.

Who was your first client when you started out on your own?
I started booking tours 16 years ago. My first client was called New Radiant Storm King. I'm still obsessed with that band. They toured with Guided By Voices a bit way back then. I heard about them from a friend from high school. They had opened for Sonic Youth at his college.

Did you have any other jobs in the music industry before you started working as a booker?
When I was in college, I was in charge of concerts for the school (SUNY Binghamton). I booked two to three concerts a week for two years when school was in session. I got to know a lot of booking agents by doing this and interned at William Morris one summer. I worked at Knitting Factory when they had a record label and I booked tours for their bands. I also worked as an agent at Billions for seven or eight years.

What is the most stressful/challenging aspect of your job?
You could compare booking tours to a difficult puzzle. Getting the pieces to fit together can some times be very difficult. And then some of the pieces you already thought were done and you had moved on from, fall out—such as a cancelled show or bad weather or something. I guess the most stressful thing is the amount of email that comes in. I respond to everything.

What is the most fun thing about it?
I love the music of the artists I represent so fundamentally it's very fulfilling to think that I am working with musicians that I enjoy. To think that these very talented musicians trust me to run the live aspect of their career is also very rewarding. I also have an amazing team of people in our offices and I am very proud to work with them and in many cases to see them come up from junior positions to very senior positions at the agency.

What's an average day like for you when you're at a multi-day music festival?
At SXSW I will sleep 4-6 hours. The rest of the time I will be seeing live music or will be in a meeting.

How many bands will you have at the festival?
We have approximately 85 artists performing at SXSW. Some will play as little as three times, others will play three shows per day. I think Toro Y Moi has 12 shows booked.

What kind of advice would you give people who want to do what you do?
I started out as an agent on my own without too much of a clue of what I was doing. I would definitely recommend an internship at an agency but I also think it would be valuable to work at a management company, at a venue and at a label to see what everyone else does. I would recommend taking classes in accounting, law, and entrepreneurship. If you really want to be an agent, I would also recommend being a tour manager for one or two national tours in the territories you want to book in. This way you'll get a sense of the drives and you'll see many of the clubs where your bands will be playing.

Owner, Force Field PR
Los Angeles, CA
forcefieldpr.com

How did you become a music publicist?
I started my own record label while I was in college even though I had no idea what I was doing. I was doing basically everything with the label myself, and I seemed to have a knack for PR instantly: I got press in Rolling Stone and SPIN for some really weird, tiny releases on my label. The label folded pretty fast as soon as I realized what a money-losing venture it was, and this was back in the days when people were still paying for music! The second experience was working at my college radio station, WVFS where I worked as the music director—through this position my eyes were opened a little bit as to how the music industry works, or at least used to work.

What does your job entail?
I usually have to do this for everyone in my family, so I've gotten used to breaking it down.... Basically bands (or their label, or their management) pay us to try to get them exposure, whether it is a post on a blog, a review in a magazine, a feature story in the New York Times, a Daytrotter session, or a booking on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. We are the liason between the artist and the journalist. If you ask most artists to describe their own sound, they look at you like a deer caught in the headlights (and still, our bands get asked this all the time). This is where we come in: We are there to sell people on a band and pitch the hell out of a band because the people in the band should not be doing this themselves, their focus should just be on making good records and touring.

Who are your clients?
Currently we are working with Neon Indian, Panda Bear, Lightning Bolt, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Real Estate, Deer Tick, Past Lives, WHY?, Dan Deacon, Ariel Pink, Vivian Girls, Woods, A Sunny Day In Glasgow, Papercuts, Crystal Stilts, Toro Y Moi, The Rural Alberta Advantage, The Strange Boys, Daniel Johnston, Blank Dogs, The Books, Parenthetical Girls, The Blow, and the list goes on.... We work a lot with these labels: In The Red, Slumberland, Woodsist, Carpark, Paw Tracks, Anticon, Captured Tracks, Polyvinyl, Domino, Asthmatic Kitty, etc.

What is the most stressful/challenging aspect of your job?
I think right now the most frustrating thing to see if just how there is this hive mind on the internet where everyone just likes and goes crazy for the same six or seven bands. Small blogs spend an inordinate about of time and energy covering the "consensus" bands that everyone already likes and knows about—I just wish there were more people going out on a limb and trying to break bands on their own, instead of waiting for Pitchfork to do it or whatever. I wish there were more people in those gatekeeper positions who took chances.

What is the most fun thing about it?
The best thing is finding a band that you just know in your gut has the potential to be really, really huge, or at least get to a certain level of success, and then working with that band and watching it actually happen. The absolute best thing to happen to a lot of my bands is when they get their first mention in Rolling Stone, or on NPR, or in the New York Times, because at that point, they can go to their parents, their grandparents, their siblings and say "Look, what I am doing is for real!!!"

What's an average day like for you when you're at a multi-day music fest?
Absolutely bonkers. Get up at 8am and check emails to see what writers have hit you up for last minute guest list or interviews. Drink gallon sized mug of coffee. Take a brunch meeting at 10am with a potential new client or with a major press outlet. More coffee. Hit the first day party at noon and from there on it's a constant whirlwind of seeing bands, arranging interviews and photo shoots and maybe carrying some gear around, too. If it's the day that one of my own events is happening, you can add in dealing with all sorts of other drama with equipment issues, sponsorship problems and other stuff having to do with the venue or someone else involved in the party. Usually I will see about 20 to 30 bands a day during SXSW, even though I may only really have time to watch one full song from each band.

How many bands will you have at the festival?
Wow, it's a lot. If you only count our current, active roster, it's probably about a dozen bands who will play about 100 shows during the week. If you add in recent and past clients to that list, it will get pretty astronomical, but we have to set our priorities, so usually the bands that are actively working on promoting a new release are going to be the ones we are focusing on.

What kind of advice would you give people who want to work in music PR?
Come intern for us!

Founder and photographer, Shadowscene
Philadelphia, PA
shadowscene.com

What brings you to Austin?
This is my 5th year attending SXSW and each year my routine is a bit different but the objective the same. Going to SXSW is about discovering and/or promoting new upcoming artists, photographing the showcases, behind-the-scenes debauchery and mania as well as hosting a few events. I work with a lot of different labels as well as artists so it's a pretty good mix up of roaming around doing documentary photography, and the afterhours party coverage as well as shooting for press.

How did you start doing party photography?
Doing event and party photography actually evolved from my coverage of underground shows and street photography from more than 10 years ago. I took those two style elements and brought them to the LA and NY nightlife scene starting around 2004. A few of my friends had warehouses or were throwing events and liked my photographic style so asked me to start shooting their parties. It very quickly became a nightly thing where I was bouncing around between three events in a day or even just three in a single night. Now my photography style encompasses everything from fashion campaigns to behind the scenes tour documentaries to just a day in the life.

What's an average day for you?
When it comes to festivals such as SXSW, everything is nonstop and one thing that's a given is that sleep is definitely at the bottom of the list. I'm usually consistently trying to be in two places at the same time and it's no surprise if I'm eating a sandwich in one hand and shooting photos with the other. I typically shoot from about noon until 6am and a few of the days I'm up just as late meeting photo deadlines from all the coverage. A day can range from attending an early showcase with an artist, skipping out half way through to go to Pure Volume or Fader Fort, stopping at a venue to have a quick meeting to ensure everything is in order for one of my own events, meeting back up with an artist if I'm doing a follow session, wrangling goats at Hank Sinatra's ranch, roaming at the Playboy or VICE party and on...and on...and on.

How many parties will you attend? How many photos will you shoot?
At SXSW I usually attend on average seven to 10 parties in a day. That being said, at the end of a single day, I'm reviewing anywhere between 1,000 to 2,500 photos.

What is the best thing about what you do?
The greatest aspect of my job is that I get to be immediately involved in everything I am passionate about: music, fashion, traveling and photography while working with friends. I get to do what I love, work with a lot of different people and have a very large say in things that Shadowscene is a definitive part of.

What is the most stressful/challenging aspect?
The challenge of what I do is actually being my own boss. Keeping myself on a somewhat routine schedule while balancing everything from the business to the creative is sometimes pretty intense.

What kind of advice would you give to people who wanted to start out on their own and do what you do?
Get ready for an adventure; because if you're doing it right you'll probably never know what to expect. Oh...and showers will quickly become overrated.

Publicist, Big Hassle Media
New York, NY
bighassle.com

How did you become a music publicist?
I grew up playing music but I wasn't able to minor in it at school so I studied Magazine Journalism and Art History instead. I made a friend at a surf shop my sophomore year that was interning at Columbia Records for the summer and realized I could work in music without necessarily having to go into a performance-based career. I went home to Chicago for the summer and applied for every music internship possible (not just PR). The lovely Jessica Hopper was the first to take me under her wing at her PR company Hyper (then Hopper) PR and it all started from there.

What does your job entail?
I send records I like to people that I think will like them and will hopefully want to write about them and/or become fans. The rest is based on enthusiasm, talent, timing, and maybe a bit of luck.

Who are some of your clients?
The Low Anthem, Class Actress, Acrylics, Seabear, Chairlift, CFCF, ARMS, Casiokids

Did you have any other jobs in the music industry before you started doing PR?
I did College Radio Promotion for a brief period of time, and some music journalism, but it's mostly been PR. These days I also help book shows in various venues and am working on a monthly concert series at Scandinavia House in NYC.

What is the most stressful/challenging aspect of your job?
Trying to get your voice heard through a continuously cluttered industry and inbox. I like developing bands early in their career as well, and that's always an uphill battle.

What is the most fun thing about it?
I am fortunate enough to get to work with bands (and people) I am truly devoted to and enthusiastic about, and for a company that is full of the nicest, most hard working and talented people I have ever met. Every day there's something new and exciting to look forward to. We are some of the luckiest people in the world to be able to do what we love and get by.

What's an average day like for you when you're at a festival?
Chaos. Basically I wake up and feel like the second I've walked out the door I've just missed three things I was supposed to be at at the same time. It's a lot of running around, stopping every five minutes on the street when you run into someone you know or haven't seen in years (which is the fun part), setting an interview up at a venue and running across the street to get something for the band only to not be allowed back in (ha). I usually spend a portion of my time every year stranded on the front lawn of Waterloo Records or at a highway bar or some other unusual place off the strip.

How many bands will you have at the festival?
I'll have about six or seven bands down there this year at anywhere from three or four shows, topping out around seven.

What kind of advice would you give people who want to work in music PR?
Intern where you can. Become so reliable when you're there that people come to depend on you, and will want to keep you around because they can't function properly without you.