2025 Impact NextGen Honoree: Taylor Freeman

TAYLOR FREEMAN
Senior Booking Manager
Outback Presents

RECENT 17K ARENA SELLOUT:
“Big Panty” comedian Leanne Morgan.

Growing up with a father who was a tour manager meant toggling along on tour across the country, witnessing first- hand all the work that goes into putting together a live show.

Since his childhood, Freeman wanted to get his foot in the door in the industry and work within the live space in some capacity. Right out of college, he began working for Reach, LLC, doing sponsorship activations for major music festivals and traveling across the country for various festivals, much like his father.

He’s found a good fit at independent promoter, Outback Presents, based in Nashville, known as a force in the comedy touring space and rapidly expanding in recent years in all forms of music.

Not surprisingly, Freeman has leaned on Outback’s Michael Smar- dak as a mentor.

“What have I not learned from him?!” Freeman, 37, says. “He is very much an artist-friendly promoter and always puts what is in the best interest of the show and the artist as the priority. He has taught me that, with proper collaboration and communication, there is a solution to nearly every problem.”

Freeman believes his generation has an advantage over others, having grown up right as modern technology began to take shape and learned how to use the internet in real time.

“My generation has grown up in two different worlds,” he says. “One with internet and social media, and one without. I think we learned a lot of the work ethic we have from previous generations, and we’ve had to adapt to a lot of new and changing technologies for the majority of our lives.”

While news headlines and current events may present a bleak pic- ture to many, Freeman feels working in comedy is the perfect medi- cine, and Outback continues to bring the laughs across the continent, with continued tours from comic superstar Nate Bargatze as a prime example. Most recently, he’s worked with “Big Panty” favorite Leanne Morgan, who’s now headlining arenas and starring in her own sitcom, and sold more than 17,000 tickets at American Airlines Center in Dallas this September.

“We all need to laugh. The world is heavy – news, social media, all of it,” he says. “But, if we loosen up, laugh more, and take life a little less seriously, we just might make it better. So go buy a ticket to see your favorite comedian and forget about the world for 90 minutes!”