FAQ’s

JRA’s role is to book concert appearances for our artists. Any other scheduling would be the responsibility of the artist’s management company. Contact information can typically be found on the artist’s official website in the Contact section.

The contract should be sent back within 2 weeks of receiving it. If you did not receive your contract, please contact JRA’s contract administrator for a new copy.

This is also sometimes referred to as the artist’s fee: this is the dollar amount that the artist is guaranteed to receive for their time and expenses.

Our artists have carefully planned budgets, so we typically ask for a church or buyer to help with expenses up front to offset the artist’s travel expenses before they arrive. We can consider a love offering in addition to a smaller guarantee in some instances, but it requires a specific scenario for it to be feasible. Contact a JRA agent to discuss the specifics of this scenario.

Due to the overwhelming number of requests to perform these types of events and the hectic touring schedule our artists keep, we are not able to fulfill such requests at this time.

Unfortunately we don’t schedule any of our artists without covering their expenses. A touring artist has a similar model to a church, all their income is typically retained during the weekends or essentially 2-4 days a week to meet monthly needs. Artists rely heavily on each event to keep their full-time touring ministry operating, much as a church would from its members’ tithes.

However, there are still ways to schedule a benefit event that can work for both sides. By seeking sponsors to help cover the artists expenses, all ticket revenue can be retained by the benefit and used as an effective fundraiser. The event sponsor(s) will gain favorable exposure by association with the cause and with the artist, so it can serve as both a tax write-off and great publicity for a local business.

After the agent has received the offer, they will review it to make sure everything is accurate and contact you if there are any questions. It will then be sent to management for review and either approved, declined or countered. Based on the response from management, this process can take anywhere from less than 24 hours to several days depending on the factors involved. You’ll receive updates from JRA throughout the process to keep you informed of the status.

You can get a good idea of an artist’s availability by checking the artist’s profile and looking at the tour dates listed. However, this may not account for personal blocks which are not listed on our website, so the best way to find out if an artist is open is to contact JRA directly by phone or by email.

You can learn a lot about how the booking process works as it relates to managing your event from start to finish in our Promotional Countdown, but here’s a brief breakdown to give you an idea of the initial steps involved:

Step 1: Contact a JRA agent to confirm that the artist you want is available on the date of your proposed event; this is also a good time to discuss the cost and other factors that will be involved with your event and plan your offer.
Step 2: Submit an offer via the JRA Offer Form.
Step 3: The agent will look over your offer and forward it to management, who will approve, decline or counter the offer. This process can take anywhere from 24 hours to several business days.
Step 4: Once your offer has been approved, you will receive a contract via email from our contract administrator that you will need to sign and return along with your deposit to finalize your date.
Step 5: Begin promoting your date!

If you are providing flights as part of your contract agreement, the artist manager may prefer to book the flights for the artist and then ask for reimbursement. On occasion the artist’s manager may request that you book the flights directly, but as a rule, never book travel without speaking to the manager first.

The artist’s manager creates the rider and will be available to answer any questions you may have – his or her contact information will be listed on the first page(s) of the rider.

Backline gear is the artist’s personal equipment that they cannot easily fly to a date. This includes guitar and bass amps, drum sets, keyboards, pianos, etc. A list of necessary gear will be included in the rider if you have booked an artist that will be flying to your event.

Unfortunately if you cancel the date, the deposit is non-refundable. This is due to the challenge to replace a date once other events are routed around it (a weekend’s worth of concerts are all connected financially for the artist) plus the financial commitment the artist makes in preparing travel arrangements (bus fees & airfares if applicable). You can always ask a JRA representative for more detail about this once you begin the process of scheduling a date.

JRA accepts deposits via check, bank wire or credit card (a 3.99% fee will be added for credit card payments).

A typical deposit is 50% of the contracted guarantee and is due within 2 weeks of receiving the contract or a date range defined between you and your JRA agent.

A “versus gross” deal occurs when the buyer agrees to pay the artist a minimum guarantee and potentially a portion of the gross ticket sales, but only if the gross ticket sales exceed the minimum guarantee amount. One example of this would be: a guarantee of $5,000 vs 60% of the gross. In the event the ticket sale gross is $10,000, you would simply calculate 60% of that, which is $6,000. This means that the artist would receive an additional $1,000 above the guarantee (given $6,000 is greater than the $5,000 minimum guarantee) and the buyer would retain the remaining $4,000 for their expenses. The primary advantage from this arrangement is that the buyer doesn’t need to report any expenses to the manager or track any complicated settlement sheets. It is a very simple and straightforward method for splitting ticket revenue.

A net deal occurs when the artist and buyer agree to split all net proceeds with an artist, usually in addition to the guarantee. The net proceeds are defined as money that is leftover from ticket sales after all agreed upon expenses have been paid.

Unfortunately not. An artist’s commitment is the same whether they perform 15 minutes or 90 minutes due to the amount of time it takes to travel to your event, load in, soundcheck, load out and travel to the next scheduled event.

There is no menu-style pricing for booking an artist – pricing depends on several factors that are different for each artist and date, including availability and travel considerations. Beyond the artist’s fee, there are also other costs that may come along with booking an artist – typically the promoter is responsible for providing meals, hotels and production (sound and lights) for their show.

Unfortunately, JRA is not able to accept demos, lyrics or songs in any form due to copyright issues and legal liabilities. If you are an aspiring songwriter, the Gospel Music Association is a great resource for you.

JRA currently partners with artists that are signed to a major record label that offers national distribution and/or a professional management company capable of facilitating that relationship. Because JRA’s booking reach is national, we also require that the artist have national radio airplay and national distribution, which is why the label component is so important. Without these pieces, JRA’s value in a partnership is diminished for an artist, as it truly requires a team approach for everything to work to the artist’s full benefit.

The first thing to do is to review your marketing plan and look for anything you may have missed along the way. If sales are lower than anticipated, contact your JRA agent and let them know of the problem – the agents at JRA have a combined 85 years of experience in working with successful events and can offer valuable advice to help improve sales.

The artist’s manager will be your contact for setting up interviews as well as in-store appearances. If you do not have this contact information, it can be found in the artist’s rider you received with your contract. It’s important not to promise an artist’s time to anyone without first receiving written permission from management.

Current hi-res photos and biographies can be found in the Artists section of our website. Artwork for posters and flyers along with other media such as videos, prepared radio spots, etc. (when available) may be acquired by contacting artist management directly using the contact information in your rider.

Call the station and ask for the person who is in charge of promotions. Tell them about your event and ask what the station might be able to do to help support it. The support of Christian radio can be very important to your event depending on your market, so this is a relationship that you want to focus on early in your event planning. For more info about promoting a Christian concert, see our Promotional Countdown page.

The artist management company is responsible for meet and greets at concerts. Please direct your request to them. You can typically find this information on the artists’ official website on the contact us page.

As a booking agency we are not involved in the ticket selling process or discounted tickets. Please direct your inquiry to the promoter or venue where the event you wish to attend will be held.

An artist’s schedule is carefully planned in advance to allow time for interviews, soundcheck and other obligations surrounding each concert date. Unfortunately their busy schedules do not allow for extra stops along the way.

We are not able to give out personal contact information for our artists, nor are we able to pass along personal messages to the artist. You may write to the artist’s management contact or check the artist’s website for contact information – all artists enjoy reading about how their ministries have reached the lives of others and would love to hear from you.

However, we do welcome feedback from attendees, churches and promoters about an experience at one of our artist’s shows via our contact form.

The artist’s management can direct you to the appropriate publishing contact that controls all aspects of song use – you can typically find management contact information on the artist’s website. JRA is not able to give anyone permission to use an artist’s work for any reason.