Credited with pioneering the current music business management model that many competitors now follow, Gelfand Rennert and Feldman celebrated 55 years in 2022.
Each client who hires GRF receives the best of all worlds: offices in London, Los Angeles, Nashville and New York, the support of more than 500 professionals with decades of experience, along with a personally dedicated senior management team for each client. After a successful integration between offices in 2019, colleagues in the UK and US can now provide a seamless solution whether UK clients are touring through North and South America, or US clients touring through the UK and Europe.
Following a lengthy period of inactivity for touring clients, where financial resources were severely stretched, 2022 was hugely demanding, being the first full year where large-scale touring activities resumed. This presented many challenges for GRF and their clients. However, by confronting these challenges and indeed over the previous three years, none of their clients had to close their business or leave the industry.
Natasha Skeet - Manager of UK Touring Services:
“Due to pandemic weakened resources, increased attention to financial and cash flow planning and management was vital to ensure that tours could be undertaken and concluded seamlessly. The impact of the UK leaving the EU in 2020 was felt increasingly during this year. This along with our continued diligence on mitigating the impact of Withholding Tax was a material factor in our advice strategy. Our clients welcomed this attention as they strived for sustainable economic outcomes for their live business.”
Economic pressures caused by increasing inflation, worldwide events and the cost-of-living crisis had a huge impact on many artists’ livelihoods as well their own personal financial welfare. The challenge at GRF was to be able to provide solutions to effectively manage this. It remains GRF’s primary objective to ensure their clients remain financially secure with our advice for efficient business and tax planning.
The other crucial objective was the continued support of their staff, to ensure a balanced workload and sufficient support in all aspects. GRF strive for diversity and inclusion within their teams.
Jo Ewers – Director of Business Management:
“Our staffing strategy was against a backdrop of an increasingly competitive jobs market, and therefore staff retention was vital in addition to finding new talent. We seek to provide an exceptional service to our clients while striving to take care of our staff’s well-being and development. We demonstrate our commitment to diversity and inclusion not only in our own staffing, but also having supported various music industry initiatives.
On a separate note, as qualified accountants too, we never forget that much of our works lands in accounts and tax returns so we pay a great deal of attention to compliance and regulation. This is important for the underlying trust of our clients in what we do on a daily basis”
GRF’s team of business managers, tax and royalty specialists are often the conduit of advice between tour managers, agents, promoters, lawyers and management. GRF are working with many relationships for successful business outcomes for their clients.
Tracey Myall – Director of Royalties:
“We support and nurture many clients who have just started their journey through the challenges in this industry. As well as artists, we provide services to management groups, small label and publishing companies, and other music and entertainment businesses.
“More than ever with the squeeze on finances, the increasingly valuable contribution of our royalty department as a full-service music specialist firm is clear. We are undertaking many royalty audits and catalogue valuations. In addition to servicing GRF’s own clients, the department is highly regarded industry-wide and has its own client base purely for royalty related work. Our team are passionate about all things to do with royalties and seek to maximise that income for our clients with our many years of experience and in-depth knowledge ”
GRF are hosting a drop-in session at this year’s Sound City Conference, and their four representatives will offer advice and share their wealth of knowledge on business management, touring, as well as recording and publishing contracts.
Pete Fellows – Manager of Valuations:
“We are incredibly proud to partner with Sound City for the first time, and we feel privileged to host this event which will help not only up-and-coming artists but anyone starting out in the music business such as aspiring managers. We hope to provide practical and straightforward advice to the delegates which will help them navigate the myriad of challenges and opportunities within the industry from a financial perspective.”
Event details:
https://plus.soundcity.uk.com/networking/here-comes-the-sums:-a-business-management-guide-to-the-music-industry
