Extended ban on up-front fees demanded

Published Wednesday 22 November 2006 at 11:40 by Nuala Calvi

Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt is facing a call for an outright ban on talent agencies taking up-front fees from artists before finding them work.

Equity and Bectu have joined forces in a bid to stamp out remaining loopholes, which they say also allow con artists to charge exorbitant amounts on the promise of castings that never materialise.

The entertainment unions have produced a document urging the Department of Trade and Industry to scrap an exemption allowing up-front fees to be charged for inclusion in casting books or directories.

They are also calling on the government to license talent agencies and make it illegal for them to charge rates of commission that leave artists with less than the national minimum wage after a day’s work.

The extent of the problem of up-front fees was revealed earlier this year in a survey by The Stage which showed that three-quarters of those paying money to agents in the entertainment industry received no work in the following 12 months.

Bectu’s national official Spencer MacDonald said regulations brought in by the DTI in 2004, currently being reviewed by the department, had made little or no difference to the plight of performers.

He added: “We have to get rid of these fees. If an agency does its job and finds people work, then they will be remunerated. If they don’t, they shouldn’t get paid. We all know these books are a shop front for the agent and don’t do anything for the actors.”

At the same time, unions want the regulations to be amended to create a separate category for legitimate talent directories such as Spotlight and Showcall, which charge a fee for inclusion in a book but do not claim to operate as work-finding services.

However, Peter McLeod, former president of the Agents Association and a member of its DTI liaison committee, warned that the plan could penalise legitimate agencies as they would struggle to cover the costs of promoting new artists, many of whom they do not exclusively represent.

He said: “We have taken the view from the outset that pre-registration fees are out of order. A good agent expects to earn commission from work provided.

“But where there is genuine expenditure for promotion of the work of an artist, that falls into a different category altogether. We have to be careful we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water here.”