Talent Buying Specialist

Job SummaryAwakening Events is seeking a motivated, highly organized, and financially minded Talent Buying Specialist to join our Talent Buying team. This role is responsible for helping develop, negotiate, launch, monitor, and execute Christian music, comedy tours, and live events. The Talent Buying Specialist will work closely with artist agents and managers as well as Awakening Events’ Routing, Ticketing, Marketing, Touring, Operations, Finance, and Production teams throughout the life cycle of a tour.This role goes beyond submitting offers and booking talent. The ideal candidate will be able to evaluate tour opportunities, build and analyze financial projections, negotiate artist deals, establish initial ticket scaling, monitor sales velocity, recommend ticketing and inventory adjustments, and understand how those decisions impact the overall financial performance of an event or tour.We are looking for someone who combines strong relationship skills, financial judgment, attention to detail, and personal ownership and can help turn a touring opportunity into a healthy and successfully executed event.Key Responsibilities• Research and evaluate artists, comedians, tours, and potential live event opportunities.• Develop tour concepts, artist packages, preliminary budgets, projections, and financial scenarios.• Evaluate artist guarantees, deal structures, projected ticket sales, expenses, profitability, and overall financial risk.• Prepare and submit artist offers and negotiate guarantees, percentages, bonuses, expenses, and other performance terms with agents and artist representatives.• Maintain accurate documentation of negotiations, approvals, deal terms, contracts, and other internal information.• Work with Ticketing and leadership to establish initial ticket scaling, pricing assumptions, sellable capacity, and inventory strategy for assigned events.• Monitor ticket sales and sales velocity against projections, historical performance, available inventory, and tour averages.• Work closely with Marketing to identify markets or events performing above or below expectations and determine appropriate responses.• Evaluate and recommend ticket flexing, inventory adjustments, pricing changes, promotions, and capacity adjustments based on sales performance.• Understand and clearly communicate the financial cause and effect of changes to scaling, pricing, ticket inventory, promotions, artist costs, venue expenses, or other material tour variables.• Proactively identify financial risks and recommend adjustments rather than simply reporting performance.• Work with Ticketing, Marketing, Touring, Production, and venue partners to develop appropriate house-dressing strategies when ticket sales require adjustments to the room.• Balance customer experience, visual presentation, production requirements, operational complexity, and financial impact when making house-dressing recommendations.• Collaborate with Routing to evaluate artist availability, routing opportunities, market selection, venue options, and financial implications.• Coordinate with internal departments to ensure assigned tours successfully progress from concept through routing, announcement, on-sale, and execution.• Attend rehearsals and the first show or opening weekend of assigned tours, as appropriate, to ensure the tour launches and operates according to expectations.• Identify issues during tour launch and work with the appropriate teams to make adjustments for the remainder of the tour.• Stay informed on Christian music and comedy touring trends, developing artists, market conditions, tour announcements, and other industry activity.• Represent Awakening Events professionally with artists, agents, managers, venues, and other industry partners.• Perform additional Talent Buying and tour-related duties as assigned. Required Skills & Qualifications• Professional experience in talent buying, concert promotion, touring, ticketing, artist management, live entertainment, or a closely related field.• Strong financial and analytical skills with the ability to evaluate event budgets, projections, deal structures, and financial risk.• Ability to understand how changes in ticket pricing, scaling, capacity, sales velocity, expenses, and other variables affect event profitability.• Strong negotiation and decision-making skills.• Excellent organizational skills with exceptional attention to detail and follow-through.• Ability to manage multiple tours, negotiations, deadlines, and priorities simultaneously.• Strong written and verbal communication skills.• Ability to work effectively across multiple departments in a fast-paced environment.• Ability to identify problems early, evaluate potential solutions, and make sound recommendations.• Ability to handle confidential artist, contractual, and financial information with appropriate discretion.• Proficiency with Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, and the ability to learn industry-specific ticketing, booking, and event-management systems.• Willingness to travel as required, including rehearsals, tour launches, industry events, and select concerts.• Willingness to work evenings and weekends when required by event and touring schedules.Preferred Qualifications• Previous experience with a concert promoter, talent agency, venue, artist management company, or touring organization.• Experience preparing or evaluating artist offers and live-event financial projections.• Experience with ticket scaling, pricing, inventory management, and sales analysis.• Existing knowledge of artist agencies, management companies, venues, and the live entertainment ecosystem.• Strong familiarity with the Christian music industry and its artists, agencies, managers, and touring landscape. About Awakening EventsAwakening Events is a full-service concert promoter and tour producer specializing in live events and touring within the Christian music space, with headquarters in Conway, Arkansas and additional offices in Franklin, Tennessee.Equal Employment OpportunityAwakening Events is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.