When it comes to entertainment and the arts, there are countless practitioners worthy of admiration, whether new faces or seasoned stars. Like many people, I am obsessed with various forms of the arts, and there are always personalities that I would give anything to meet and experience in real life. Of course, the notion of ‘ordinary’ people meeting established, successful entertainers is generally a somewhat fanciful one – it actually makes my day if I catch a glimpse of famous face out and about among we mere mortals or when my friend  reports a sighting of Stevie Wonder buying earphones at the Apple Shop, or Jude Law queuing for a cupcake at the Primrose Bakery. 

In recent years, thanks to reality TV, singing competitions, the ubiquity of social media and a general shift in the relationship between cultural providers and consumers, Andy Warhol’s prediction about everyone getting their fifteen minutes of fame has come good. While the credentials and ‘star’ status of many of these new celebrities often remains questionable, the fact remains that there is talent out there.

 

I was actually looking for a way to get one of my favourite musicians to play for a private event I was involved with hosting, and by looking into the possibilities for meeting them I received an insight into an entire realm I didn’t even know existed. 

My friend recommended that I try to get in touch with the band in question via Twitter, which seemed like a reasonable first port of call. It’s well known that this particular social media platform has become a kind of online ‘leveller’, inexorably denuding the distance between star and audience. The more I thought about it, and the more I glanced at celebrity Twitter feeds, the more evident it became that a lot of stars actually do interact directly with fans on Twitter. So why not take a stab at it? 

One reason is the ‘cold calling’ nature of contacting stars in this way. In the end that put me off. Instead, I took what I considered a more professional approach and tried to accomplish my goal with help from the MN2S booking agency , which is specifically designed to put you in contact with people you wouldn’t otherwise be able to talk to or book. I hadn’t realized that agencies like this existed, but now I know it is actually possible to secure big-time talent for smaller events.

Of course, there will always be performers and celebrities who simply won’t go for more intimate private events. But you might just find a person or group within the arts, music, entertainment, sports and so on who actually are receptive to  requests such as appearing at private parties or speaking engagements. So, the next time I’m involved with planning an event like this, I have a whole new perspective on what kind of talent I could bring in and what there presence could offer.