POSITION PROFILE
Artistic Director
ARTISTIC LEADERSHIP BOOKING COMMUNITY SUSTAINABILITY
LOCATION
Victoria, British Columbia
REPORTS TO
Executive Director / Board of Directors
POSITION TYPE
Full-Time, posting close date Friday, September 5, 2026. Please include a cover letter outlining your experience and skills and why you believe you would be a good fit for our organization!
ORGANIZATION
Arts on View / Hermann’s Jazz Club
Position Summary
The Artistic Director / Booking Agent is responsible for developing, curating, and delivering the artistic programming of the jazz club.
The role combines artistic leadership with hands-on artist booking and is responsible for maintaining a compelling, diverse, financially sustainable calendar of performances that reflects the club's identity and its role within Victoria's music community.
The Artistic Director / Booking Agent develops relationships with local, national, and international artists; identifies emerging talent; maintains relationships with agents and presenters; negotiates engagements; coordinates bookings; and works with the club's management and production teams to ensure each performance is both artistically successful and operationally viable.
A central responsibility of the position is balancing artistic excellence, community relevance, audience development, and financial sustainability.
Key Responsibilities
Artistic Direction & Programming
- Develop and maintain the overall artistic vision and programming direction of the club.
- Curate a balanced and engaging calendar of jazz and related music.
- Ensure programming reflects the club's artistic identity while remaining responsive to changing audiences and developments within jazz and contemporary music.
- Present a thoughtful mix of established artists, emerging performers, local musicians, touring artists, and special projects.
- Maintain an appropriate balance between traditional, contemporary, experimental, and culturally diverse expressions of jazz.
- Identify opportunities for residencies, festivals, artist collaborations, tributes, educational programming, jam sessions, and other special events.
- Provide input on the club’s artistic direction and programming priorities for grant applications.
- Develop programming that supports both the artistic mandate and financial sustainability of the organization.
Artist Booking
- Research and identify artists appropriate for the club.
- Maintain active relationships with musicians, agents, managers, promoters, festivals, presenters, and other industry contacts.
- Respond to artist and agent booking inquiries.
- Proactively pursue artists and touring opportunities appropriate to the venue.
- Negotiate artist fees, guarantees, door splits, hospitality, travel, accommodation, and other engagement terms within approved budgets.
- Issue or coordinate artist offers, agreements, contracts, and confirmations.
- Maintain an organized booking calendar and booking pipeline.
- Coordinate routing opportunities with other venues and presenters when appropriate.
- Ensure booking information and artist requirements are communicated accurately to the appropriate staff.
Financial & Business Responsibilities
- Develop programming within established budgets and financial targets.
- Evaluate proposed bookings based on artistic merit, audience potential, ticket pricing, capacity, production requirements, and financial risk.
- Recommend ticket pricing in consultation with management.
- Review historical attendance and sales information to improve future booking decisions.
- Monitor the financial performance of programming and adjust booking strategies where appropriate.
- Work with management to develop annual and seasonal programming budgets.
- Seek an appropriate balance between commercially reliable programming and programming that advances the club's artistic and community mandate.
Artist & Industry Relations
- Serve as a primary artistic contact for musicians, agents, managers, and presenters.
- Build and maintain a reputation for the club as an artist-friendly, professional, and desirable place to perform.
- Maintain strong relationships within Victoria's jazz and broader music community.
- Develop relationships with Canadian and international touring networks, festivals, presenters, and cultural organizations.
- Attend performances, festivals, showcases, and industry events when appropriate to discover artists and maintain industry relationships.
- Represent the club professionally within the music community.
Local Music Community
- Maintain strong awareness of the musicians and musical activity within Victoria and Vancouver Island.
- Provide meaningful performance opportunities for local professional musicians.
- Identify and support promising emerging artists.
- Encourage connections between local musicians and visiting artists.
- Develop programming that strengthens the club's role as a gathering place and cultural hub for the jazz community.
Audience Development
- Consider audience development as an integral part of artistic programming.
- Develop programming capable of serving existing jazz audiences while introducing new audiences to the club.
- Identify opportunities to engage younger and more diverse audiences.
- Collaborate with marketing staff on the positioning and promotion of artists and events.
- Provide artist biographies, programming context, photographs, promotional materials, and other information required for effective marketing.
- Identify particularly marketable stories, collaborations, anniversaries, album releases, or other promotional opportunities associated with bookings.
Production & Operations Coordination
- Communicate artist technical riders and production requirements to production staff.
- Identify unusual technical, hospitality, travel, accommodation, accessibility, or scheduling requirements before bookings are finalized.
- Work collaboratively with venue management, production, front-of-house, marketing, ticketing, and hospitality teams.
- Ensure the programming calendar provides sufficient lead time for marketing and production.
- Assist in resolving artist-related issues when they arise.
Programming Philosophy
The Artistic Director / Booking Agent should approach programming as both an artistic and strategic responsibility.
Successful programming should:
- Preserve and advance the club's identity as a jazz venue.
- Present music of exceptional artistic quality.
- Support Victoria and Vancouver Island musicians.
- Bring important Canadian and international artists to Victoria.
- Introduce audiences to artists and music they may not otherwise encounter.
- Create opportunities for emerging artists.
- Encourage collaboration and artistic development.
- Build sustainable audiences for jazz.
- Contribute positively to the financial health of the organization.
Not every performance must maximize revenue. However, the overall programming calendar must be financially responsible and sustainable.
Qualifications & Experience
The successful candidate will ideally have:
- Significant knowledge of jazz, its history, current artists, and contemporary developments.
- Strong knowledge of the Canadian jazz and live-music landscape.
- Familiarity with Victoria, Vancouver Island, and the broader Pacific Northwest music community.
- Experience booking artists, programming venues, producing concerts, managing artists, presenting festivals, or working within the live-music industry.
- Existing relationships with musicians, agents, managers, presenters, and/or festivals.
- Strong negotiation and relationship-management skills.
- Understanding of artist contracts, guarantees, door deals, hospitality, riders, and touring logistics.
- Ability to assess both the artistic and commercial potential of a proposed booking.
- Strong organizational skills and the ability to manage bookings many months in advance while responding to short-term opportunities.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Ability to work collaboratively within a nonprofit, cultural, or community-oriented organization.
Personal Attributes
The successful candidate should be:
- Deeply engaged with music and live performance.
- Curious and continually discovering new artists.
- Artist-focused while understanding the realities of operating a venue.
- Comfortable making independent artistic judgments.
- Financially responsible without allowing commercial considerations alone to determine programming.
- Highly organized and reliable.
- Collaborative and receptive to input.
- Well connected within the music community or capable of developing those relationships.
- Comfortable representing the organization publicly and professionally.
Measures of Success
Performance in this role may be evaluated using a combination of artistic, audience, community, and financial measures, including:
- Overall artistic quality and reputation of the club's programming.
- Strength and diversity of the performance calendar.
- Audience attendance and ticket sales.
- Programming revenue relative to budget.
- Development of new audiences.
- Number and quality of opportunities provided to local and emerging musicians.
- Ability to attract significant touring artists to Victoria.
- Artist and agent satisfaction with the club.
- Effectiveness of advance booking and calendar management.
- Contribution to the club's reputation locally, nationally, and within the jazz community.
Authority & Accountability
The Artistic Director / Booking Agent has delegated authority to research, negotiate, and recommend or confirm artist engagements within established programming policies and approved financial parameters.
Bookings involving expenditures, guarantees, financial exposure, or contractual commitments beyond established authorization limits require approval from the Executive Director or other designated authority.
The Artistic Director / Booking Agent is accountable for ensuring that artistic decisions support the organization's mandate while respecting approved budgets, operational capacity, and long-term sustainability.
Pay: $65,000.00-$75,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Casual dress
- Discounted or free food
- Extended health care
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Victoria, BC V8W 1J9
