DEEP DIVE: 'Ghosted': Musicians claim booking agent owes thousands of dollars

0:00This is a Triple J podcast. How would you feel about working for free, going in and putting in a lot of effort and getting nothing at the end of it? Because that's what some artists bands are claiming has happened to them. They've been booked by an agency, and then they're saying ripped off. G'day, it's Dave MacAzy with you for Hacks Deep Dive of the Week. Let's look into some of these claims. A Hack investigation has uncovered allegations from local museos who say, it's been happening to them after playing shows for a booking agency called Ozzy Giggs. Now Hacks spoke with more than 20 Ozzy bands and artists to reckon their owed thousands of dollars by the company. Multiple musicians claiming they were ghosted by the booking agent after their performance and never received payment. I'm not made it money, so if I didn't get paid, it's hard to pay my band. I'm not expecting to get paid at all at this point. So what should you do if this happens to you?

1:00Well, soon, you're going to hear from a lawyer specialising in music and entertainment to get a bit of practical advice. Following it up, chasing them, threatening legal action. But first, our Hack reporter, April McClennan, with this story. So my band is called Flick a Vertigo. Nathan Nicholson's been gigging around Melbourne for a while now. We're like a psychedelic, sugacy, garaji, dream poppy sort of band. Earlier this year, his band got an email from someone called Michael from a booking agency called Aussie Gix. And it's like, I've got this slot. Let me know if you guys are free, which is all pretty normal at that point. Like, I think shading on it, yeah. The band agreed to play the gig in February and signed a contract. We had to hit 20 ticket sales and that had to be credited to us specifically. I've had a look at the contract from Aussie Gix. It said there'd be no financial penalties if you don't reach the ticket target. But it also stated that funds are only released once you sell the ticket target. Nathan reckons the gig was a huge success,

2:00but there were some red flags. I've no idea what Michael is, don't know his last name, don't know what he looks like. He was not at the gig, which was kind of talked about at the gig amongst everyone. It was like, where's this guy? Then it came time for payment. Nathan says he didn't hear back from Michael about his invoice. So followed up with him again, just being like, paid just needing some sort of response about payment, that sort of thing. And then after that nod, he kind of got back to me and at that point it was like, unfortunately, make the 20 ticket threshold, which we did definitely did. I've read an email chain between Nathan and Michael from Aussie Gix. Nathan asked for screenshots of the night's ticket sales because he's certain the band did sell enough tickets. Michael responds saying the venue handles ticket sales, so he doesn't even have that information, but he's going to request it from the venue. Then a week went by, no response again. So it's another message, just being like, paid, please send us a screenshot, pay us, and nothing since then. So it just kind of like goes to not expecting to get paid at all at this point.

3:01Nathan's not alone. I've spoken to heaps of artists who did shows with Aussie Gix and claim they weren't paid. I'm a French person, but shit, to be honest, we do it. Ryan Thomas says he was booked for a show by Michael from Aussie Gix in August last year. Well, we did the gig and we actually had a really good turn out like lots of people came along. But when it came time for payment, his story is similar to Nathan's. Because usually these Gix take a while to pay out, so it was probably about two months later, we were like, well, hang on, we did a gig a while ago and we haven't been paid for it yet. So we're all texting like the group chat with all the bands and they're everyone's lucky. I don't know what's going on. I haven't heard of any of the things. Yeah, still haven't been paid. It left him out of pocket. I'm not made it in money, so if I didn't get paid, it's hard to pay my band. To be honest, the money in that is so average already, just the fact that people like this Michael guy want to take advantage of that just kind of baffles me. Ryan and Nathan both want to be paid the money they owed. Like, no one should worry for free. It's not the kind of country we live in. It's not the way that businesses and people should conduct themselves.

4:02The idea that this guy has pocketed all this money off the work that we put in, like that doesn't sit right with me. It feels very predatory. And they reckon there should be changes to the way the industry operates to prevent things like this happening in the future. I think there should be more vetting from the venues that work with these booking agencies because there's nothing stopping someone like Michael just, you know, starting an Instagram, calling it positive gigs, and just finding four random bands and just saying, how I'll put this on and then just running off with it, you know? I feel like something needs to happen because this guy's like an anonymous. Like, I really do much other than just spread awareness and let people know what's going on. Pack on Triple J. April McClennan reporting there and April's actually still with us now to talk us through a bit more of this detail and what she's found out. Hey, April. Hey, Dave. Where did this story come from? Yeah, so an artist called Lucien actually reached out to Hark because she wanted us to look into Aussie gigs. So Lucien had done a show with Aussie gigs

5:02and wasn't paid. So she made a TikTok to warn other artists and it kind of blew up. May just come a look for Sydney musicians. Have you done a show with Aussie gigs? Have you done a show with Revolt? Have you been paid at all? Who is this person? My name is Lucien and I would like to know I just don't want this to happen to any more people. Thank you. And Dave Lucien has actually been such an online sleuth. She's spoken with heaves of artists and venues all in this massive effort to try and stop this from happening to other musicians and to try and figure out who's behind Aussie gigs. So were you able to figure it out? Like who is Aussie gigs? Who is this guy, Michael? Well, Dave, I contacted Aussie gigs for comment. They never got back to me. So I reached out to a venue where the company had held a show and the venue told me when they went to pay the invoice for Aussie gigs, the account name Aussie gigs provided didn't actually match the bank account. It was registered as Revolt Entertainment which is another booking agency. I've looked at emails between Aussie gigs and the venue

6:03and despite the different company name, Michael from Aussie gigs confirmed it was the correct bank account. Okay, so that kind of makes it sound like Aussie gigs and Revolt Entertainment shared the same bank account. Yeah, it appears so. And look, all up, I spoke with about 25 artists who claim Aussie gigs or Revolt Entertainment failed to pay them after a show. Medic claimed they were ghosted, some assumed they mustn't have hit the ticket target. While others say they did hit the ticket target but still weren't paid, four acts of ledge they were only paid after threatening legal action. While other musicians claimed they were pretty big delays in payment with some alleging they only received money after hounding and begging the booking companies. Okay, so do we know anything about Revolt Entertainment then? Well, firstly, I did contact Revolt Entertainment for comment. They never got back to me either. However, I discovered the company is registered to a guy called Jonathan Etansell. He's listed as the director and secretary of Revolt Entertainment and Jonathan's

7:03in a band called Strip of Cleave. It's a pop funky band from Western Sydney and the group is led by Jonathan and his sister and his bands actually appeared on lineups for shows put on by both Revolt Entertainment and Aussie gigs as recently as September last year. Okay, did you manage to talk to Jonathan? Well, I contacted him for an official response. He didn't get back to me. However, we've previously spoken and Jonathan told me that he was no longer involved with Revolt Entertainment at all. He said he'd started the company with an overseas student called Sean that he'd studied with and at the beginning he actually thought he was going to be the next big thing. But then he says he realized the company wasn't financially stable because of the way Sean was running it and said the whole thing was a really heavy time in his life. And basically, he said he's moved on from all of that now. Jonathan did also give me the contact number for Sean, the former business partner, but when I called a woman actually answered and said I had the wrong number. Oh, wow, okay. I mean, this has been quite a trip. A lot of rabbit holes you've been down and obviously there's still some unanswered questions

8:05but it is a really interesting investigation. And look, thank you for that. Hack reporter, April McClennan, really appreciate you looking into this. Thanks, Dave. And really keen to hear from you as well. If you've been through something similar, if you've had an issue with a booker for some kind of gig or you haven't been paid, message in, no, four, three, nine, seven, five, seven, triple five, it is interesting to hear that so many artists were getting in touch via social media saying, yeah, this has happened to me and I really wasn't prepared for it. Let's get into this a little more now with Moira Mackenzie, who's a lawyer specialising in music and entertainment. Moira, thank you so much for joining us on Hack. No worries. This is really concerning stuff, like young artists thinking they're going to be paid and then left with nothing. Do you tend to see a bit of this? Yeah, unfortunately it does. Clients do come to me from time to time with this issue. Might be either they haven't been paid by a promoter or a festival or an agent like the situation that's a reason here.

9:07And yeah, I mean, I do kind of unfortunately see it. I had one recently, which was a band who was approached by a festival booker and they said that if the band paid a fee and then sold a certain amount of tickets, they'd be guaranteed a spot on the line up. And that instantly when they told me that it's only a fair few red flags went up and unfortunately they weren't able to get the fee back but at least we kind of helped advise them to stop engaging with that person because it didn't sound quite right. Yeah, it doesn't sound right when you're being asked to pay for a spot to perform. I mean, you're a musician yourself, Moira, has this happened to you? Yeah, unfortunately, a very long time ago before I was a lawyer, if I had my legal skills, I might have been able to get the money. But yeah, when I played one time, I played a gig and it was an originals gig, we're playing our own music, but we did play one cover in there and then the venue said they weren't going to pay us because it was supposed to be a set of originals which wasn't actually stipulated at the start and also just seemed like a bit of a weird reason

10:08not to be paid for a whole show. Yeah, and I chased it for a while, but unfortunately, I didn't get paid. So annoying and it does sound like a lot of artists are struggling with this. Do you feel like they're being ripped off because they're young and maybe don't understand contracts or what they're agreeing to? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think that's a big part of it also. I mean, we know that when we get opportunities, when we're just starting off, we want to take them all and we want to, you know, I think the best of everyone who's approaching us and I think that's probably just leaves a young musician's in particular, a bit vulnerable to unfortunately, people who might be acting in a predatory way like this. This is Harkham Dave Marcazi. I'm speaking with Moira McKenzie, who's a lawyer specialising in music and entertainment. We're talking about people being ripped off effectively when they're being booked for gigs and not being paid, being left high and dry. Moira, if bands do feel like that they are experiencing something a bit dodgy, what should they be doing? The first thing is be asking around, see who else has worked with these people.

11:08So even if you feel like something isn't quite right, trust your instinct and do your own due diligence to see if other people have worked with them, whether they've had a positive or a negative experience, you know, if they've been paid properly, you know, as much of that and doing your own online research as well. I mean, if you do that, you can often uncover the people are legitimate businesses or not. Yeah, so that's probably the first step. And if, you know, it has happened to you and you've already done the gig and you're looking to get paid, then a lot of the time, you know, being really following it up, chasing them, threatening legal action, if you have to get, you know, a lawyer involved, you know, if it's worth the money, then do that. And oftentimes that can result in an outcome. Yeah, so there are things that you can do. I'm sure. Are there any other changes you think we should be seeing? Because we've got someone on the text line now who says, what about the venues? Like how much responsibility do they have? And, you know, there are people we heard from another person just before an April story who was saying, maybe we do need venues to be taken this more seriously and insisting on meeting bookers, that kind of thing. Yeah, I think the same is good to do due diligence

12:12if you're the artist and working with new people, venues and anyone else who's working with someone, you know, should be taking the opportunity to make sure that they're legitimate and, you know, whether it's like working with a new employee, yeah, you check their references, you check who they've worked with, make sure that they're doing the right thing. For sure, I think it falls on venues as well. Do you think that's also the fragility of the music industry that we're experiencing right now that's contributing to this that people are taking any gig they can, even if they're being asked to pay to perform, because there just aren't many opportunities. Yeah, look, it probably is contributing and it's unfortunate that people would feel like that and feel like that any opportunity they need to take, but, and there's also unfortunately people that they were praying on that, but yeah, I do think that could be part of this, sure. We're hearing from a lot of people, we've got someone on the text line now who says, a PSA to young emerging artists as a former booking agent, if a contract stipulates you need to sell a certain amount of tickets to get paid, then do not take the gig, they say. So there we go, some, yeah, advice coming through. Look, thank you so much for your take as well,

13:12lawyer, Moira McKenzie, really appreciate your time. You're welcome. Yeah, a lot of feedback on this one and definitely a lot of concern from people who do feel like they've been taking advantage of or they're worried about the prospect of it. So if you do have stories yourself, make sure you get in touch with us, you can reach us on hack socials, at Triple J hack, on Instagram and TikTok, and also don't forget to subscribe to this podcast. We've got deep dives like this dropping every single week. That's all for now, I'll catch you next time.