“There’s been more changes in the last decade alone, than since William met Morris,” says booking agent historian Gerald McGuire, author of Future Deal, the seminal book that rocked the concert world in 1974. “Cell phones, fax machines, the Internet and Botox injections have transformed the lowly booking agent into a true renaissance man. Promoters who want to buy dates for today’s acts, such as Alabama or Melanie C, often find they are dealing with a man of the future, a Book Rogers of the 21st Century.”

Nowhere is McGuire’s statement more evident than in the current competition in Helsinki that may very well define the future of booking dates for such major acts as Cher, Bon Jovi and Pearl Jam. For it is in this ice-shrouded, winter wonderland that grand champion Russian promoter, Seth Hurwitzikov is negotiating to buy dates for Jimmy Buffett and Interpol. However, Hurwitzikov’s opponent isn’t a traditional booking agent. Instead, Hurwitzikov is negotiating with a machine.

Described by many as the “ultimate” in live-music knowledge, “Deep Booking” is a computer programmed with all the concert strategies ever devised over the past 100 years. After suffering a humiliating defeat one year earlier when the machine appeared to be accepting his offer for Aerosmith, only to sell the entire tour to Clear Channel Entertainment, Hurwitzikov is back for a rematch, claiming that this time, “it’s personal.”

Is this a sign of things to come? Do machines actually represent the future of the concert industry? And what about other methods, such as the highly controversial Home Booking program where parents instruct their own children on the nuances of negotiating dates for Queens Of The Stone Age and The Benjamin Gate instead of leaving it up the public school system? Is this yet another sign that the traditional booking agent is a relic of an earlier age? Will the image of a harried booking agent screaming into a phone be relegated to the history books?

“Offices have already been transformed into personal bargaining spaces and phones have made way for email and faxes,” says McGuire. “The future is already here. And it’s brighter than ever.”

And the screaming?

“Wouldn’t dream of touching that one,” adds McGuire. “After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”