The Hot Seat: Penny Weber, Director, Cover Your Artz

12 August 2011

by Lars Brandle

Cover Your Artz has launched a new one-stop website for tour logistics. Can you tell me a little about the service?
It fills a gap in terms of finding production staff anywhere in the world and of course in Australia. It means, for managers and for booking agents and production managers and touring managers, instead of spending hours on a phone trying to find the right people in the right spots with the right skills, and the right money, you can find that information instantly. The website also generates all the necessary paperwork. If you’re hiring a production engineer, the website will send him a booking sheet and an agreement. It automates some of those back-room services which drive you bananas because they’re so time-consuming and fairly inane.

Why hasn’t this type of thing been set up before?
Because it costs so much money. I came up with the idea in 2003, when I was running a national tour for a band who had a grant application approved. We were trying to minimise the cost of touring. I couldn’t find engineers in two areas. I ended up taking a sound engineer from Melbourne who doubled as a tour manager. The tour was financially successful in the end, because the band was on the up and we sold lots of merchandise. But there was a downside. I figured “Wouldn’t it be great if that kind of database existed,” and I wanted to set one up. A friend who was into computer programming gave me a “mates rate” of setting it up at $150,000. The card rates would be about $250,000. I was 23 at the time, and I didn’t have the cash. Fast forward several years, technology has improved drastically and you can almost buy this type of computer programming off the shelf, which minimises the costs greatly. I have a private investor, but it wasn’t a huge amount of money in the end.

Who do you anticipate will use this?
I hope everyone uses it. The target demographic essentially is anyone from artist managers to bands. It’s for anyone doing a theatre show, an opera, a dance show, a band show, whoever it is looking to take a performance around the country and looking to fill those roles.

Can bands living abroad use this service to explore the market?
Yes.

Are there any dreams to build this into an international network?
Yeah, when I first started working on the idea, I got chatting to some of the international speakers at Bigsound in 2008. There was some interest about those people representing the brand, or franchising the brand in those territories. I was looking at making it an international website from the outset. But because the booking sheets are contractual, you can’t legally just transfer that to England or America without actually setting up a website primarily for those areas.

On a personal note, you had a near- death experience some time ago. How did that incident shape your focus as an industry professional?
As a pedestrian, I was hit by a car doing 60km. That was in June 2009. I broke 13 bones and spent three months in hospital and it’s been a fairly long recovery process. In those two years, I’ve learnt to walk again, got my life back together again, rebuilt a website. I have a lot of respect for people in the medical profession, and anyone who can maintain a work-life balance successfully. It’s been a really interesting process. I certainly prioritise my friends and family more than I used to. I’m just thankful to be here.

What’s on the slate for the coming weeks?
We’re hosting a series of workshops in Melbourne [August 20 at NMIT Fairfield], Sydney [August 28 at Notes Live] and Adelaide [September 3 Chapel Lanes studio]. The workshops are the real-world launch for the brand Cover Your Artz. We’re doing it for two different sectors of the industry. One is the performers, the other is production staff. For the performers, we’re teaching them how to interact and engage with an audience, how to look after their nerves, how to present themselves on stage. We’re looking at teaching sound engineers how to be tour managers and production managers. It’s more cost-effective taking a sound engineer on the road who can also tour manage.

Workshop speakers include managers Gregg Donovan (Grinspoon, Airbourne, Josh Pyke), Keith Welsh (Icehouse) and Catherine Haridy (Eskimo Joe, Bob Evans, Jimi Maroudas) plus Chapel Lane Entertainment owner Wayne Ringrow, Andy Walters (AJ Sound/FOH Shannon Noll) and Angus Davidson, front-of-house for Crowded House. Early bird rates apply to those who sign-up before Friday August 12. www.coveryourartz.com