Risk is part of the game.

If you start a company you have to in most cases invest money. Let say you have opened up a small shop selling clothes. It goes pretty good. Suddenly you get an opportunity to get a good spot in the top of the busiest streets in town. You also get to double your floor space. It's a great opportunity. Of course, you need to invest in the new store if you took the space. You would have to buy more inventory, hire more staff and with expansion, you have to do PR for your new location.

A lot of work and risk as well.

You can be safe just keep your old shop and just keep going. Or take the chance and start something bigger.

Would you expect the landlord of the new space to get you the store free from rent in 6 months? I mean you take a risk by moving there!

Of course not, and most didn't think that would work. In the first place, the landlord doesn't give a damn of your risk. He has space and takes a risk by not having it rented out. And you are a risk too. If you fail your expansion you might quit and he has to look for another tenant and that can make him lose money.

This is pretty simple stuff, huh?

Why on earth is that so hard to grasp around an artist career? Yes, you need to invest to make your career bigger. The more risk the faster. No risk at all and you keep it on the same small level.

Think about the big store as a showcase festival. No, they don't want to hear your whining on investment. They can easily replace you like the landlord can choose tenant. Yes if you are important its a different story. If it is an apple store being opened the landlord probably can let it go free in a couple of months for longer contact. But you are not, you are the small store getting an opportunity.

Can the landlord tell you that it will be risk-free to move in? Or if it is the best choice?

Of course not. It's a risk that the street change and people go in other directions. Or people buying things online and they won't visit your store. No one knows if it is worth it, it's a gut feeling. Best choice? Well, maybe you get an offer from an even better location pretty soon. But it has taken you four years just to get this offer, so it's not likely that it will happen. Same here you have to have a gut feeling.

Same with a showcase festival. No one will know ahead what the outcome will be. You have to have a gut feeling, a mind to take a risk and be a doer to get something done.

No, we don't care that you take a risk. The day you have grown big the less risk you have to calculate. But stop nagging around it. You don't hear shopkeeper going around complaining around the risk they take. To them it's natural. It should be natural for you too.

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What risk have you taken lately?

There is always a risk to make a deal. Sometimes when you work with artists you can feel how they try so hard to minimize the risk it's not worth proceed working with them.

A couple of years ago I was in negotiations with an artist that was afraid of everything. The contract was scrutinized in every little detail. Nothing wrong with that, it's just you don't want to do it three times and still get the same skeptical questions.
In the end, the artist thought that we could work on a six month trial period and then we could decide.
Not a good move. The artist would be the same skeptical then and just keep another six months. And six months is to short to prove anything and I see a lot of trouble working for free in six months and introduce the artist in networks and don't have any safe things.
In the end, we dropped the deal. The artist is still in the thinking that we negotiate but the lack of risk-taking just said that we really couldn't get anywhere.
So in all, you must be willing to take some risk to get somewhere.

Personal:
Just been on the opening VIP party at GMA. Meeting great people as usual. I feel this round will be very productive. I'm getting good feedback on the ideas I have. I like it also when the conference is of good size. Many tend to be too big, this is very good in size. Also, that Live at Heart is presented in the same speak as SXSW, the great escape, Reeperbahn, Co/Pop and Primavera sound. We are all here.

Artists:
I hope I have the time to do a cool surprise for my artists this summer. Time is short but I hope to get it right.