Be nice treat people like humans. The words were from our last panel on Youbloom. Mayla who said it has a long career as a live artist around the world. She added it’s funny that really have to say that. A bit of nice treatment can take you far.

I agree. The climate has changed. Luckily many artists are really nice and good people. But there are more and more that lick upwards and kick downwards and really don’t understand you do this to the same person.

Many people don’t know that I read all conversations we have on our distribution side. That side and the booking of the showcase festival is one of the few we still deal with amateur musicians. And in many cases, I jump in and answer when the team has much to do.

And in several cases, I can meet artists behaving like assholes just because they don’t know who is behind the screen. For small reasons (many times caused by themselves or by their ignorance) they act like spoiled stubborn 5-year-old kids.

Then a couple of days later I will meet the same artist but this time seeking a gig on the festival. Suddenly they are very friendly with the booking team.

Of course, karma is the shit. If they behave like that on one place I really don’t want them on a festival where they lick the booker’s ass and then act like shit on the sound technician.

And it can the other way. There was an artist behaving really unprofessional to our booking team. Suddenly at a conference earlier this month, they sought me up since they wanted to be on our label. And not getting it they were very friendly towards the same person they spoke too two weeks before since they thought I still was the A&R on the label (I’m now A&R on the management). And same here Karma came up and bit them, twice since I also talked to a booker on another festival about their ways.

Then I had a really nice artist coming up to me asking for advice about how to get into our festival. She didn’t know that I worked on the festival, she just had heard I had band played there. So I played along gave some advice at the same time telling the booking team to take an extra look at her application.

Or the guy talking on the distribution. He had made an error. But was very friendly and nice. Normally we can’t fix this error that easy. Though he was very polite and nice, not screaming and shouting. I after the chat went and tried to fix the error with my very sensitive extra ways that are only used in emergencies. He got that because he was nice.

Kill them with kindness my friend Åsa always told me. It’s hard sometimes, but I have become better over the years on it. And it takes you further.

For me, it’s interesting to see both sides.