Someone once joked, “Nigeria is the only country where booking an artiste is an extreme sport.” While it sounds funny, there’s a lot of truth in that statement.
Booking many Nigerian artistes requires patience—lots of it. Often, inquiries are met with silence, delayed responses, or outright ignorance. It’s frustrating that something as simple as booking an artiste can be so unnecessarily complicated, especially in this time and age.
A professional response should be straightforward:
• “The artiste is unavailable on that date.”
• “Your budget doesn’t align with our fees.”
Instead, many management teams either don’t pick up calls or fail to respond to emails. When they do, it’s rarely on time. Some claim they are too busy or overwhelmed with emails, but that’s not an excuse. Worse still, artistes who display their contact details on social media often don’t respond at all. Often, even when you dare to DM the artiste, some of them pretend like they didn’t see it instead of directing you on how best to reach their team and get an immediate/prompt reply. To be fair, some do respond, but the lackadaisical attitude from the management still makes things difficult.
The Importance of Prompt Communication
If you’re an artiste manager, you should have email notifications set up for inquiries. If the volume is overwhelming, hire an assistant to screen messages and highlight urgent ones for immediate or prompt response. With the advent of AI, you can now set up scheduled replies or automated responses for different types of emails. These days, some mailboxes even offer templates of different automated responses that you can choose from.
No matter how “hot” an artiste is today, there will come a time when bookings won’t be as frequent. The way inquiries are handled now can affect future opportunities. Many event organizers avoid artistes with unreliable management because no one wants unnecessary stress when planning a show.
A Lesson from International Artistes
Booking foreign or non-Nigerian artistes is often a smoother experience. Their teams respond quickly, whether the answer is yes or no, and in a matter of hours, you can confirm, conclude, and sign a contract for a booking . Nigerian artistes—whether rising or established—should emulate them and ensure their teams handle inquiries professionally and promptly.
A simple “No, not at this time” or “The artiste is unavailable” costs nothing. But silence and poor communication could cost future opportunities. A lot of artistes lose revenue and income due to the incompetence of their management with respect to how they respond to messages, emails, and calls from prospective clients seeking to contract their services.
Artiste management is a career path and should be treated with professionalism just like any other career, and as such, it is very important that every artiste ensures his/her team responds to inquiries promptly.
