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Behind the Scene Interviews

Behind the Scene: Talent Buyer Jeff Rogness

Rogness has worked as the talent buyer, or the person who books the bands to play the venue, at the Tractor Tavern for two years.

Dan Ray June 18, 2021
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Behind the Scene: Talent Buyer Jeff Rogness June 18, 2021

Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).

Photo by Leigh Bezezekoff

At Dan’s Tunes, we work to bring you a comprehensive picture of the Seattle music scene, and musical artists are a big part of that. But, an album doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It takes a whole host of people to bring a musician’s vision to life. In this series, “Behind the Scene,” we’re taking a look at all of the people who are integral to the process of making music that you probably haven’t heard of before — from producers and radio DJs to vinyl cutters and photographers. Our goal is to make the series both educational and a resource for artists looking to expand their teams. Today, we’re chatting with Tractor Tavern Talent Buyer Jeff Rogness.

Washington State is set to reopen from the pandemic on June 30, and Ballard’s Tractor Tavern was one of the first venues to announce live shows. Jeff Rogness has worked as the talent buyer, or the person who books the bands to play the venue, at the Tractor for two years. (He said he isn’t fond of the term “talent buyer” but that it came to be because “booking” can also refer to bookkeeping.) As live music becomes more of a possibility for summer of 2021, Rogness is currently working to fill out the summer schedule with both touring bands and local acts.

I sat down with Rogness to talk about the typical process of booking a show, the factors he considers in choosing a lineup, and what a good initial booking inquiry looks like. Below is our interview, edited for length and clarity.

How long have you been working at the Tractor, and how did you get started there?

I’ve been doing this position for two years. It’s a long story, but basically I had started booking shows on my own at some other clubs. I had gotten my foot in the door here bartending and picking up door shifts, and then the owner [Dan Cowan] reached out to me and said he would be interested in me taking the reins.

What do you like about booking?

I find it interesting in terms of, how do we make shows work? What kind of deals do we offer? The way the Tractor runs, we don’t make a ton of money on the show breakdown. Some shows do better than others. You can do this show that may not do as well because you have a show that’s going to do a lot better. I do a lot of puzzles, so filling out the calendar is a challenge I like. Who’s going to play when, and how can we fit these dates? Especially at a place like the Tractor where you’re mixing 80/20 or 70/30 touring with local. Touring takes priority because they only have this [certain] window that they’re coming through. Then you fill in the other dates with locals. 

I love going to shows, and [music] has been a huge part of my life forever. It’s one of those “if you can’t do, coach” situations. There’s ways to be in the music business but not be a musician. It’s been exciting for me to realize that.

What’s the typical process of booking a show?

Most touring bands have a tour agent that works for an agency. That person contacts me and asks for holds, which means they want a spot for maybe a week. I reply with what’s available and what kind of place in line they would be in for that day. They’ll say, “Okay, this date is the one we’re looking for. Can we challenge it?” That means I ask the people in front of them in line if they want that date or not. If it clears, they’ll ask for an offer. I send them an offer and they say that offer looks good. Then the show’s booked. From there, it’s talking with the agent to line up the announcement and on-sale dates and whatever publicity we can do for it.

Sometimes I happen to be working on a [touring] show that needs support from a local artist. I’d say, “You’d be a good fit for this. Let me see. I need to get approval from the agent.” Other times there’s a hole in the week so I’m building a local bill. I’ll reach out to people I’ve been wanting to play or who have that kind of timeframe open and can bring in a good crowd. 

What does a good initial inquiry from a musician look like?

Have a bill in mind, especially with bands that have some overlapping draw but not the same draw. [It’s better to] have [the band] build the bill rather than me trying to hodgepodge three or four bands together. If they can do that legwork and bring it to me then I’m like, “Yeah, cool. That looks good. We can put it on.”

Or reach out and say, “I see this touring artist is coming in through. If they need support, I’d like to be considered.” That tells me this person wants to play that show and will work to promote it, and it gives me a fresh idea for who to send in as a support instead of relying on the ones I think about more often because I’m in contact with them. 

Most clubs have a little form on their website of what to submit when you’re trying to book a show. The most useful thing is a link to your music, a timeframe you’re looking for, and a bill idea. People try to describe like, “We’re a post-punk disco space band.” I’m just going to listen to it and decide what that means. So just put a link in. I tend to listen to almost everything I get because we’re wanting to support local musicians and get those lines built. 

What factors do you consider in booking a lineup? 

It really comes down to draw. Especially in pre-pandemic times, for anybody to make money — the bands, us, everybody — there need to be customers. There need to be people who show up and pay to see it. Otherwise it’s somebody playing to an empty room, which isn’t fun for anyone. 

When I’m building a local bill, it’s hard to know who can draw what on a weeknight versus a weekend. People always want to play a weekend. We attempt to keep those nights for shows we know are going to sell out. It comes back to being able to pay rent. Those are the nights people are going to drink more, so we need to have the most people in here.

How far in advance do you normally book shows? 

That varies. With touring, I have stuff on the calendar for next November. Booking that far out has come from the pandemic. We were never booking 15 months in advance, but that’s a little bit more common now. It’s not too uncommon to do a year or 10 months for touring. They know they have a record coming out, and they’re going to be promoting around that. 

The least amount of time would be like, two weeks. A month to six weeks is a good amount of time to announce your show’s on sale before it’s happening.

What’s the price breakdown of how artists are paid? 

It varies. We take 10% to 20% of ticket sales, and that money goes to paying the person who handles ticketing and promotion, the sound person, the door person, and whatever else it takes to run that show. If we’re taking 10%, we might walk away with 3% that’s actually for the house.

There’s a SVOG grant that’s coming from the federal government. That’ll be great, except for no one’s seen any of that money yet. Dan Cowan is one of the most generous people I have ever encountered in my whole life, and he is pretty sick that none of this money that’s set up in this grant is actually going to musicians. We’re committed to doing what we can to allocate that money to pay musicians, locals in particular. That’s not to say we can guarantee everybody a bunch of money — we have a lot of expenses to take care of after not having revenue for 16 months — but we want to spread the wealth around.

What do you expect from musicians in terms of promo?

We don’t have resources other than anything that you post on Instagram, we’re going to share on Instagram. We have a much broader range of who’s seeing that depending on who the artist is. Basically all we can expect is people to be talking about it on social media. That’s where it’s at now in the last couple of years.

Has your booking process changed since before the pandemic? 

It’s a double-edged sword because some people won’t know how much they can draw. It’s going to be really interesting. Some people think they can draw a certain amount and can or can’t do that anymore.  We’re going into such unknown territory in the next 12 to 18 months. We’re selling tickets, but it’ll be really strange to see how comfortable people are with standing right next to each other. We sell to 430, and that’s a pretty tight space to get 430 people in here. 

[Shows this summer will] be less frequent only because we just found out that we can open. It’s going to be a lot of local stuff, which will be great. We anticipated that from the get-go. I think walk-up business will be better than it had been before the pandemic. People will be on the street, and if the price isn’t too high they’re like, “Yeah, let’s go in and check it out.” That’ll be a good opportunity for musicians. It’s going to be exciting to see what combination of shows are happening and who’s playing together. I’m excited for it. 

Have you instituted any COVID precautions for reopening?

We’re not reducing capacity. All of our staff is vaccinated, and we’re encouraging anyone who comes in to be vaccinated. We’re encouraging people to wear masks when they’re not drinking. I know other places are requiring a vaccination card or proof or a negative test from the last 72 hours. We’ve decided not to require those documents because it’s hard to prove and hard to enforce. The reality is that the state is opening, and we trust they wouldn’t be doing that if it wasn’t safe. 

Is there anything else bands should consider when booking a show?

Think about if your crowd will travel to that spot. When the Tractor opened, there was an article in one of the local papers of like, “Who the fuck wants to go to Ballard to see a show?” It isn’t the most convenient neighborhood to get to. You have to know that your fan base is going to want to go over there. 

Then it comes down to, “this is a once in a lifetime moment,” which is more difficult to accomplish for local artists. When they’re playing around town, even if it’s once a month, maybe you’ll catch it. If they’re playing the Tractor and you live in Columbia city, you’re like, “Maybe I’ll wait until they’re playing a spot on Capitol Hill.” But if they’re only playing once every six months and you want to see them, then you’re going to go. 

To inquire about booking a show at the Tractor Tavern, email Rogness at booking@tractortavern.com.

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Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).