Agency Intel: WME’s Cristina Baxter Talks Big Festival Plays, First Tours For Many Clients Post-Lockdown

courtesy WME – Cristina Baxter
WME

Cristina Baxter knew from a young age she wanted to be in music, and that was a pretty young age.

“Back when kids were talking about being astronauts or firefighters, I always said I wanted to be in music,” says Baxter, now a mother of two children under the age of 4. “I didn’t know what job that was or what it looked like.” In high school, Baxter started “managing” – she emphasizes heavy quotes – a friend’s emo band, then while in college she DJ’d on the side and had her own radio show while booking talent for the student union. After graduating and taking an internship at CNN, where she spent two years as an associate producer and talent booker, she decided to quit her job with no plan and moved from London to LA, where she learned what an agent was and eventually found herself in the mail room.

“I think I understood that the experience of being in front of people and performing live, it’s so personal and intense and vulnerable, which is why it’s so exhilarating for the artist and performer,” says Baxter, who is part of the team of agents at WME representing artists including Kygo (along with WME’s Rob Markus), Kali Uchis (with Kevin Shivers), Miley Cyrus (Kirk Sommer), Ashnikko (Michael Coughlin) and Sofi Tukker (Jonas Schumann, Stephanie LaFera).

Still other clients include “Call Me Maybe” star Carly Rae Jepsen and the multitalented Empress Of, also known as Lorely Rodriguez.

“I felt a connection into what I was doing almost immediately. It’s always felt right to me, being an agent.”

Pollstar: What did you think of Miley’s big Lollapalooza performance?

Cristina Baxter: It is such an important moment in our business. She headlined the first night of one of the biggest and most culturally impactful festivals in the world. It was a momentous performance full of energy, creativity and fun surprises. She also paid tribute to all the challenges everyone has been facing in being isolated from one another over the last year and a half. She brought the entire park together for a real celebration in a way that only Miley can … so huge congratulations to Miley as well as her team for an incredible show.

Lolla is going to be hugely impactful for the rest of the industry in terms of reopening and concerts and festivals to come. I know C3 worked incredibly hard to put together as safe an event as possible, and there’s an incredible amount of excitement.

One thing that’s stood out in the last few months is how many artists – thanks to the pandemic – are heading out for the very first time despite developing huge fanbases during COVID.

It’s really interesting. I’ve had a few artists that will be embarking on their first-ever tour. An example of that is Ashnikko – she has grown astronomically over the period of pandemic. She has a short North America run this side of the year, she sold 20,000 tickets almost instantly – the Warfields, the Fillmores, the T5’s and Novos of the world. It’s really interesting. She’s never done a hard-ticket show in North America. We had it routed a year ago in smaller venues, but she’s exploded.

There are so many artists like that. No hard-ticket history but having huge moments online and in streaming. With Ashnikko we saw how passionate her fanbase is, how connected they are to her, and it’s a connection we knew would transcend beyond the online and streaming world, and really convert to hard-ticket buyers in the touring world. So we’re really excited about that tour.

While not able to tour during 2020, artists keeping up fan engagement has been real work.

Sofi Tukker is a great example of a band that took the challenges of the last year and figured out how to adapt. They’ve livestreamed nearly daily for 500 days, I think it is. They recognized the sense of isolation that people were feeling, and really connected with their fans each and every day. Out of that, this amazing community formed. As their fans and the rest of the world begin to step out, now we figure out how to connect with these fans in this community in an in-person way.

Seems like crew and supplies are difficult to come by right now as well, along with only so many dates on the calendar.

@vijatm – Miley Cyrus Lolla 2021
during her set at this year’s Lollapalooza Chicago.

Tours are calibrated so finely that you need things to be really set in stone in order to execute the plan. Beyond availability of equipment and things like that, there’s a lot of traffic. There’s an increased focus on packaging in a way that feels organic and exciting to each artist, and making sure when we put something up – a new tour or show, it’s tied to a new release, a piece of content, a moment in the media. You really have to think of it in a completely holistic way.

How do you figure out the last-minute as well as strategy for the next few years?

Hopefully there’s this duality of long-term strategy and short-term pivots to capitalize on opportunities. When you’re looking at a global tour, every state and territory needs to be on the same page as it relates to where they’re at with COVID restrictions. It’s incredibly expensive to put on a global tour, at the arena level in particular. Rather than doing it in a piecemeal manner or unsure if certain states will be open or if you’re able to play certain shows, it makes sense to look a little farther out still.

But it’s totally a case-by-case basis. With Kygo, there were a lot of things we were looking at for next year. The [Banc of California] stadium was something we had planned on doing next May. As soon as we got that glimmer of light, I called (Live Nation’s) Rich Best and said let’s get a date in September, let’s do it. Kygo was ready to get back out there. The Red Rocks show – Red Rocks being such a special venue and a really important one to Kygo – was something we were looking at doing next year. I called Eric Pirritt and said if the date becomes available just let me know. It was late May and he called me, he said I have June 24. Without hesitating I said we’ll take it (laughs). I called the manager, Myles, called Kyrre (Kygo) and within a couple days we had a confirmed show that went on sale, I think, three weeks before the show and obviously sold out in minutes.

It ended up being such an incredible night. I was there. It was a really emotional night, obviously for Kygo and everyone who made the show happen, but also for the audience, too. For a lot of them it was the first time seeing their friends in person in 15 months.