As the concert business soars to new heights, five of its most powerful women have been on a tear. As leading agents across five top booking agencies, Jenna Adler, Lucy Dickins, Samantha Kirby Yoh, Cara Lewis and Marsha Vlasic serve as tour architects and chief dealmakers to the stars, shaping the live-music landscape while helping their artist clients build their brands and broaden their businesses beyond music to sustain their careers.
With her client Adele, Dickins helped create a 75,000-capacity Munich venue purpose-built for the superstar’s 10 August 2024 shows (and aptly named Adele Arena). “I don’t think anyone else has ever done that,” Dickins jokes over Zoom. Lewis famously got a shoutout in 1987’s “Paid in Full,” on which Eric B. and Rakim explain, “Cara Lewis is our agent … and together we get paid in full.” The hip-hop touring powerhouse’s wins go back decades — and include moments like Eminem’s first-ever show outside Detroit in 1999.
When we speak, Adler has just returned home from a trip to Dubai with her client Jennifer Lopez and expounds on the new heights that Deftones — “the first band I ever signed” — are currently achieving. Vlasic casually mentions that “Neil” — as in longtime client Neil Young — recently called to discuss his upcoming coastal tour. And Kirby Yoh is keen to chat about LCD Soundsystem’s recent Los Angeles and New York residencies, which encompassed 20 shows and which she booked for the band that she has helped guide through arenas, festival headlining slots and beyond over the years.
Their rosters are deep, their wins are many, and their reputations as leaders not just in the “female agent space” but the world of agents, period, are renowned. While each works for a different company — Kirby Yoh is a UTA partner and its co-head of global music, Dickins is WME’s global head of contemporary music and touring, Adler is a music touring agent at CAA, Lewis is founder and CEO of Cara Lewis Group, and Vlasic is the co-chair of Independent Artist Group’s music division — there’s a clear kinship among them, with the five women throwing out adjectives like “legendary,” “chic,” “magnificent” and “respected” when referring to one another.
“I hate losing,” Adler says. “But at the same time, I’d rather lose to one of them than to any of my male counterparts.”
Here, the five discuss their long careers, juggling their professions with motherhood and how agencies are changing for artists and female executives alike.
In terms of working with well-established touring acts, how do you guide an artist through a long career? How do you manage demand as an artist evolves?
Samantha Kirby Yoh: The No. 1 thing is partnering with an artist. You’ve really got to listen to what their vision is, what their priorities and concerns are. Those change over the years. Cyndi Lauper had a lifelong dream of playing an arena tour. She’d never done arenas and also wanted to do a spectacular presentation in regard to her life’s work. It’s not guiding so much as listening and then putting it together and being in true partnership with the manager and artist.
Jenna Adler: You can’t just be a transactional agent. It’s never going to last that way. You have to be really passionate because at the end of the day, we’re selling.
Cara Lewis: Once an artist’s fan base has solidified, doors open. It is about coming up with different opportunities that align with that artist to further enhance the brand and continue adding to their longevity. That can be as simple as playing larger venues, adding a sponsor or doing a brand partnership that increases awareness and grows the fan base … The ultimate goal is longevity and the ability to reinvent and hold fans’ attention throughout the evolution of a career.
Marsha Vlasic: To be honest with you, it’s not mathematics and it’s not chemistry. It’s pretty much instinct. I’m very confident in telling [artists] what I think they should do. I’m not afraid of them. A lot of people tiptoe around artists. Even certain managers are afraid to talk to their own artists. But once you go through a certain number of years and earn a certain amount of respect, then artists reach out to you and trust you.
Lucy Dickins: It’s about building a strong, authentic relationship. I need to understand an artist’s vision and figure out how to tell that story. From when we’re starting to work together to when they become huge clients, authenticity is, for me, the most important thing because I think people can see through [anything inauthentic].
What’s your philosophy on artist development?
Dickins: You’ve got to build a solid foundation that allows them to grow, experiment and evolve, while they’re also grounded and true to what they are. It’s not one size fits all. My thing is always just focusing on empowering them with the tools, knowledge and support they need to make informed decisions and trust their instincts. I’m a gut person, so for me, it’s like, “Go with what you want and just be authentic.”
Vlasic: I worry about taking that leap of faith too quick, too big, and then you’re f–ked. Artist development to me is turning people away, selling out, having a great show … Again, a lot of it is instinct.
Lewis: Throughout my career, I have always been at the forefront of artist development, championing female artists. In the early stages of an artist’s career, you have to know how to capture the urgency, which is all about strategically planning based on artist analytics, packaging and, of course, ticket pricing.
Kirby Yoh: My philosophy is to listen and tell the story of who they are. If there is a deep love in regard to beats, it’s about where we can get them DJ’ing in the warehouse and doing a remix. Every step and play have to be intentional and authentically build on the lore of who they are. And don’t miss steps. You have to do the steps to build your community with you so they feel they’re on the journey with you all the way.
Are festivals still effective in breaking new artists?
Adler: For me, it’s about the long game and not taking festival money so fast, not even looking at festivals until we have a bit of control over where we want to play. I always say we should never play a festival before four o’clock because before four, you’re playing for the vanity of it. Instead, let’s go out and do the hard work and create our own fan base so we can point to a scoreboard and say, “I sold this and that out. This isn’t a favor.” I don’t care about doing all these festivals. There are always exceptions, but my go-to is not worrying about being on a poster in a [small font size] just to say we’re there. Let’s go and sell out a 300-seat club.
Vlasic: I don’t know what else we have to break a new artist. Having an artist’s name on a festival poster is very important. All promoters look at who’s on there, and at least the emerging artists can play to a bigger audience than they would if they went on the club scene and did 300 a night.
Kirby Yoh: I love festivals. It depends on what festival it is. The smaller festivals, like the 20,000-capacity, are doing great. If you look at [San Francisco dance festival] Portola and [festival creator] Danny [Bell’s] exceptional skill set as a curator, it doesn’t even break artists but brings people who only heard of X, Y or Z DJ and then they suddenly hear the artists that inspired that DJ. It takes them on a kind of learning [journey]. [Portola] has done that exceptionally.
Dickins: I think it’s arguable to say if a festival breaks an artist, whereas before it used to be really important. Now a lot of artists on the way up ask if it’s more important to do their own show and build their own brand. If you’re in the opening slot on a stage or up against a load of clashes, what are you really getting out of that? I don’t know. As opposed to doing your own show with your core fan base or attracting people coming to see you build your brand.
But if you’re a bigger artist, they’re still huge milestones because they bring massive exposure and the chance to reach global audiences. And there are smaller festivals, or genre-specific festivals, that are becoming more prominent. Doechii played Camp Flog Gnaw last year; that was a huge moment. The big ones are good for the bigger ones, and the more bespoke, genre-specific ones are becoming more prominent for the smaller artists.
How are you seeing artists handle ticket pricing? In regard to the all-in approach where customers only see the final cost, is it important for fans to know the face value that artists are charging before ticketing fees?
Vlasic: None of my artists want fans to be pissed off because they think they’re charging too much. The thing is, somebody’s going to be miserable about something all the time. That’s my feeling on ticket pricing. With older artists, where it may be their last tours, they don’t want to go out just for the fun of being on the road. The road is no longer something [those artists] are dying to do, but this is their means of income. They don’t want to piss people off, but they want to maximize it.
Lewis: It all depends on artist, market, viability and urgency. Keep prices low, within reason and without compromising [an artist’s] ability to tour and offer an innovative production. Be cognizant of ticketing fees. Know what the competitive acts are charging and make an analysis of the sales and how the scaling is related to the result. Understand that each market has different needs due to the economy and different urgency.
Dickins: International markets tend to be much more cautious [than in the United States]. But ticket fees are a huge thing. At the International Live Music Conference in London, everyone was telling me that there are major concerns around ticket fees and the lack of transparency because fans feel misled when those additional fees are tacked on at checkout.
Kirby Yoh: I think most artists want the experience to be as easy as possible. When you go to buy a ticket for your favorite artist’s show and you’ve got $100 in your pocket, you want the total checkout cost to be $100.
Adler: I am so sensitive to ticket pricing because I look around like, “How can all these people afford all these shows?” Yet every show is selling out, even though the average ticket price is north of $100. I always try to go on the lower side, almost to a fault. I get a lot of pushback because they say I’m leaving money for scalpers to come in. I don’t want that. It’s such a delicate balance.
You’re all so well established. How has your job changed over the years?
Adler: The biggest difference I see is that now the artist wants a relationship with their whole team. When I started, none of the agents had direct relationships with their artists. Agents always had to go through a manager. Now artists want to be able to pick up the phone and talk to their agent.
Dickins: When I was first booking tours, there was a load of in-market stuff you never paid much attention to that now you do because the look goes everywhere. Your first look is really important because that can play into stuff later on in a career. It’s way more involved, much more detail-oriented and much more strategic.
Lewis: Social media has changed our lives. It is the key to it all and has changed the way we market and sell everything. Professional networking platforms have given us resources to connect with anyone at any time about anything.
Vlasic: I think the pandemic changed things more than how long I’ve been in the business. Since the pandemic, the whole structure of the business is different in terms of the back-office stuff. I have a beautiful office. I rarely go there. I don’t have a schedule. Maybe I’ve always beat my own drum in terms of being at a company, but the company structure and routine have changed drastically.
Most of you have children. What is it like doing your job as a mother?
Vlasic: I don’t know how I did it. I seriously don’t. I didn’t have family that I could call at any given moment. My husband had his own thing going. I went home almost every night, made sure they had dinner and the homework was done, and then I went out. I don’t know how the girls do it now, but the difference is, if you’re an agent at most companies, you don’t have to be in the office for a certain amount of hours like I did. I remember one time one of my sons was really sick, and I was staying home to get the test results from the doctor … My boss at the time called me and said, “I hope you realize you should be working regular hours,” knowing my son was sick. That wouldn’t happen now.
Adler: I have 23- and 25-year-old sons, and CAA allowed me to [raise them] with such seamless patience. They were incredibly supportive even before it was a thing. I nursed every day, my kids came in, but that was because [CAA managing director] Rob Light had five kids, and he was a great dad. He understood. All the guys here had kids and understood it was family first. I was really lucky in that way.
Dickins: As a female agent, the sacrifices I have to make with a young family are huge. It’s something I battle on a daily basis. I got back from London two days ago. I go to Australia on Sunday, I come back for one day, then I go to London for two days. When I look at men in my positions, they don’t have the guilt that I have … My husband deserves a f–king award because he has to hold the fort all the time. When my 9-year-old is crying because she doesn’t want me to go away and I have to go because I have to spend time with a client, it’s tough. I think that’s why, in the touring aspect, it’s especially hard for women.
In recent years, it feels like the glass ceiling has been broken in agenting, and your careers are a testament to that. Does that feel true? How could this world be more supportive of women?
Vlasic: When I was starting out, I didn’t know I was any different. I didn’t know people viewed me as “You’re one of the only women.” I just worked hard and was determined. There are times I’ll come off a panel and a young girl will come up and say, “It’s so hard for us as women.” I’m thinking, “What the f–k are you talking about?” There are more women agents, more women managers, more women musicians. Don’t use that as an excuse.
Kirby Yoh: I think it has become more supportive to women, but there’s still a lot more to do. There need to be more opportunities, full stop. But we’re getting there. More people are hiring women. More people are empowering them with tools and skills, and more of us are pulling our sisters with us in a good way, like, “Come to the studio with me. Come to the show.”
Lewis: [Billboard’s] Women in Music [has] been an amazing platform not only honoring the talent but also bringing awareness to the behind-the-scenes executives pushing the industry forward. We need more of this. When you put your heart and soul into all that you do and succeed at it, it should raise you up, not keep you stagnant at a company.
Adler: It used to be that the males would pit us against each other because the women weren’t close to each other and there were very few slots. It’s taken a long time to change the narrative of “She can’t be in leadership because she doesn’t get along with so-and-so.”
I don’t know if I should say this, but I’m going to. Women in Music is such a powerful issue. There are few places to celebrate what we do. On the other hand, I say to myself, “But I should be part of the overall list.” I play with the boys every single day. I appreciate all of it and it means so much to me, but that’s where I am today: I love my female sisterhood, but I can also play with everybody.
This story appears in the March 22, 2025, issue of Billboard.
