There are many acts, and there are many booking agencies. So what makes us stand out from the rest? Well, our logo is pretty funny. Fat Cat Booking was also started by two people with years of experience in the entertainment industry. One (Brianne), a model, photographer, and self-starting businesswoman with over 25+ years of experience. The other (Jon), is a musician who has played professionally with many bands/shows in venues all around the world for the past 15 years. Together they brought their experiences to the table and formed Fat Cat Booking.

Throughout their years in the industry, Jon and Brianne experienced a lot; both good and bad. These experiences showed them what to do, and what not to do when it came time to form the agency. The industry is full of people who look to make the biggest profit no matter who goes down in the process, and it has destroyed business relationships, bands, venues, and individuals all over. They’ve seen agencies screw over bands, bands screw over agencies, and bands and agencies screw over venues. In the end, it’s the audience that gets screwed over the most. This is one of the many reasons why Fat Cat Booking operates on a different level. A level where everyone is happy at the end of the day.

Our key to success is just that: make everyone happy. To do this, we start with the acts we book. Fat Cat looks at three major components when it comes to who we sign on:

1. How talented is the act? – Okay, we’ll admit this one is pretty obvious. However, it’s not quite as common as one might think. While the average audience member may not notice small subtle differences between the tribute act and the real thing on a conscious level, they do notice if the musicians on stage truly care or not about the music they’re paying tribute to at a deeper subconscious level. In other words, the audience will enjoy the show a lot more and will become fans of the act, if the act themselves are true fans of the music. The acts we sign are not just in it for the money. They have a deep connection to the craft, and to the music, and they all thoroughly enjoy performing on stage.

2. How does the act work with others? – Anyone who works in the entertainment industry has met a truly talented individual (or not) that they just cannot stand to be around. It can be frustrating for sure and usually kills all the fun for everyone. There’s an epidemic of egos, divas, tension within bands, drug/alcohol abuse, and more problems that are too many to mention. Both Jon and Brianne decided early on to avoid as many of those individuals as possible. Every act we sign is guaranteed to be courteous, and professional on every level with a ZERO tolerance for anything otherwise. Because we should all know how lucky we are to be able to work in this tough industry, and therefore work together to make every show a great one.

3. Will the act sell tickets? – This is the big question for every venue, right? Of course! That is why we always ask each act what their game plan is to sell tickets before signing them. Again, this may be an obvious one, but not quite so much. Jon has not only seen many acts similar to ours but has filled in for quite a few of them as well. He’s seen some bands come into a beautiful large venue that can hold 2000 audience members, and later find that they’ve only sold around 200 tickets. How does this happen? Lack of advertising. Many acts are under the assumption that once they’re booked into a venue, there’s nothing else that needs to be done. They assume the venue will do all of the advertising, fill all the seats, and will be 100% responsible for getting people to see the show. We all know how that usually turns out. Fat Cat Booking only signs on bands that actively do whatever is needed/possible, in tandem with every venue, to sell as many tickets as possible. The goal is to SELL OUT. Because at the end of the day, each one of our acts wants to return to the venues we book, and we at Fat Cat want to be the agency venues come/return to for musical acts.

The point is, each one of our acts will be professional, dedicate time, manpower, and funds to advertise every show to come as close to selling out as possible, and (of course) they’ll put on an AMAZING show!

For the bands/musicians reading this, you might be asking how you walk away happy as well. We’ve seen too many cases of agencies either going for only high quality or only high quantity when it comes to booking shows. There are instances where an agent has such unnecessarily high standards for every show, that the acts get very little work. There’s also the opposite where an agent says yes to every offer, whether good or not, in order to collect as much commission as possible. No fight, no negotiating, no fairness for the band. On top of those scenarios, some agents charge venues significantly more than the band’s asking price in order to pocket the difference. Our agency is full of people who have experienced all of these in their careers and refuse to be these types of agents. As a musician, Jon knows bands simply want to hear this: we at Fat Cat Booking promise full transparency. Every show will pay a respectable amount, we take a max of 10% of the gross, and that’s it. Pretty simple, really. You will always know what we’re doing, what we’re charging, and that you will get the best payment possible within each venue’s budget.

To put this long-winded “About us” simply, Fat Cat Booking wants one thing – that after every show, the venue is happy, the act is happy, we’re happy, and most importantly the audience is happy. It’s as simple as that!