When I was just out of high school in a little regional QLD town I felt a real lightning strike moment where I literally woke up and knew I wanted to work in the music industry. I knew I’d have to move to Sydney as there were so few music companies in Brisbane at the time, so I emailed everyone I could to get me just one excuse to move to Sydney. I got an unpaid internship at a label (thanks to some “street teaming” I had done for them in Brisbane), packed my car up and I was gone. I lived in a backpackers for almost a year when I moved here, worked at a cd store, and sold merch to meet people in the industry and make friends with local bands. That lead me to my first paid job as a management assistant to Lior, which then led to me tour managing Passenger throughout the UK for 3 months, and then through the contacts I had made, I found out about a spot opening up at Select Music. I didn’t know what a booking agent was, but they worked with lots of artists that I was friends with or admired, and all I wanted was to go to gigs for free. And 14 years later, the rest is history. 

No! I did no form of higher education, and really my biggest thing with looking for new staff members etc, is that the person has to LOVE music. It’s a hard industry, and you’ll be pushed to breaking point, so I would much rather hire someone who seems to have their head screwed on, but is also getting involved as much as possible with music – be it creating content at shows, hosting a podcast, going to panels, taking photos, selling merch etc. If I can see that you are really passionate about music, that speaks absolute volumes to someone’s longevity in the industry and their willingness to work hard.  

That one has gotta go to my Bigsound co-programmer / fellow agent / bestie Casey O’Shaughnessy. We met in 2010 in the Select Music office and have grown our careers together from assistants into agents. She’s always championed me and we’re also a great source of venting for each other. I’ve learnt a great deal from her and am also the captain of her fan club, so get in line. 

I also am very grateful and owe a lot to the 2 agents that I’ve worked under in my career – Stephen Wade from Select Music, and Evan Davis from Cornershop Agency. I feel extremely lucky that the two agencies I’ve worked for have been run by men that have really supported me and taught me so much, and are just wonderful people. 

I deeply respect and admire the work of Susan Heymann and Sahara Herald at Frontier. There’s not a huge deal of women in senior roles in the agent/promoter sector, so they have always been a north star for me, and have always treated me with such kindness and graciousness with their time. 

2 Select Music acts that I’m loving and have been so excited to hear all of the things they are doing / have coming up are Shady Nasty and Folk Bitch Trio. Also both great examples of bands that have really worked hard for years, and from an external view feels like everything has just perfectly fallen into place at the right time. 

Shady Nasty

and Folk Bitch Trio.

Wade Forster

And then a special shoutout to my favourite cowboy Wade Forster who is selling out his US & Aus tour like hotcakes – I’m SO excited to see what happens for him. 

Hopefully another incredible year of live artists that they want to work with! We have really intentionally tried to program artists across not only genres, but levels of their career as well, so that there is something for everyone, whether you are an intern at a label, a young manager, an international promoter, or a senior executive. It’s never been harder to break new artists, and the industry really needs to come together to help champion emerging acts, and I really want BIGSOUND to be the place where the seeds of those relationships are sown.

Just get your face out there as much as you can and meet as many people as possible. We are always on the hunt for incredible new industry players, but to get your foot in the door it really is often about who you know. I really do recommend selling merch as a good inroad, you get to work with so many tour managers / bands / support artists etc. You never know who you might meet. 

Comparison is the thief of joy!!! Please do not compare yourselves with other artists! I’ve seen far too many artists (and young managers) burn out, or drop their team because they aren’t getting as many gigs as “x band”, or start to really spiral and I just can’t stress how important it is to just focus on your lane and build your community and stay the course. But to do that you really need to have a complete trust in your team and make sure that you have an understanding about what everyone does. 

It’s very obvious how much everyone is craving community at the moment in an otherwise very isolating world, so I’m absolutely loving this much grander sense of “community” at shows, and artists really leaning into that. From artists creating spaces to interact with their fans directly online, to something as little as matching dress codes at a show. For example seeing 10,000 long white skirts at the Gracie Abrams show was very adorable, and you know if these girls saw each other on the street the next day in their merch they would connect and talk about it. I saw Mia Wray did a colour theme for each of her shows so that the room was filled with that one colour and fans would easily spot each other on their way to the gig, LOVE that. 

I’ve definitely cried a few happy tears over the course of my career at shows, but most recently I do have to say that The Preatures Blue Planet Eyes anniversary tour got me in the feels. They were the first band I ever booked and being their agent opened a lot of doors to me when I was younger, so to see us all 10 years later (much more tired), when I wasn’t sure I’d ever see them perform again, was pretty special. 

Eminem’s “Without Me” as it’s also my only party trick to be able to sing it word for word.