Tony skinner 00:01
Hi, and welcome to the podcast on podcast my business.com.au. And today we have Leanne Gunnulson from https://www.artist-bookings.com/ How are you, Leanne? Hello, Tony.
Leanne Gunnulson 00:19
I’m really, really good and very happy to be here and talking with you today. 
Tony skinner 00:23
Fantastic. And I wanted to get you on because I’m doing some podcasts and what have you around Christmas. And I think for you guys, because you book artists, and recording artists and what have you, it’s a perfect opportunity to get the message out that you guys are available for corporate.
Leanne Gunnulson 00:46
Absolutely not only corporate, but private home parties. We’re offering a range of really interesting events that can happen for small groups. So if your business is only allowed 20 people back in the firm, but you’ve got 100 people and they’re all connecting
Leanne Gunnulson 01:04
via zoom, we can bring in our night musicians to perform for you live in your venue or via zoom. So you can have a crazy party, live music, great entertainment. And you can have all of that happening so that your team feels engaged. We’re also offering people who would like to have high quality musicians perform a short concert in their own home as a unique kind of crazy gift. I think for people who are desperate to get back to the arts, were able to bring in the best musicians, Melbourne and Sydney has to offer to perform live in your home for a really reasonable price. I think that’s a great idea. So you can have them centralized at zoom it out to all your friends, you can dance home, and have dance parties in your own home. But together on zoom or anything else. Absolutely. And you’re using live music with high quality musicians who are delivering fantastic.
Leanne Gunnulson 02:03
The atmosphere of a live concert can’t be replaced. So it’s, you know, we’ve done a couple recently, when when during the lockdown lifting period, and we put an opera singer into a party and she’s saying five beautiful songs for a 50th birthday party, absolutely glorious. We had a 17 year and they had a couple of singers come in and perform a few numbers for them. We’ve also done live stream time parties with five or six artists coming to a specific home and we streamed it out to his best friend’s because he wanted to throw a party and and you know, lockdown was just crushing. So it was great the people using our service to bring the fun to them. We’ve actually got an opportunity at the moment you can win a home concert by entering a competition we have on our website.
Tony skinner 03:02
Okay, now where would I find that?
Leanne Gunnulson 03:04
You go to https://www.artist-bookings.com/ bookings under the events page. We have two fantastic competitions. One is to win a home soiree and the other is to win a trivia night. So they’re both that can be well are live and both zoomed if you would like so kind of lots of options.
Tony skinner 03:31
Okay, well, we’ll definitely highlight that win a home concert. When does it close?
Leanne Gunnulson 03:39
I think it was actually mid November.
Leanne Gunnulson 03:40
Tony skinner 03:42
Oh, boy. Okay. Thanks for letting me know that. Okay. That’s cool. Good. All right. So happy to help you with that. And publicising get that out because you get it out early.
Tony skinner 03:54
Okay. So I guess you know, with the restrictions around different levels of restrictions around Australia, we’ve got Sydney and Melbourne. So we should just mention Sydney. Yes, you can have for a business event. You can have up to 300 seated guests. Fantastic. So in Melbourne, well, you can have a couple of people around for a barbecue outside. Now. I’m joking. It’s a little bit better than that, but not by much.
Leanne Gunnulson 04:19
Not by much. Not by much.
Tony skinner 04:22
Are you in Melbourne or Sydney?
Leanne Gunnulson 04:23
Well, we’re based in Melbourne, but we operate in Sydney as well.
Leanne Gunnulson 04:28
Both able to give all these fantastic events in both cities. And of course, Sydney has that capacity that corporates can book a great trivia event or our live concerts. And it’s just a great way of having a function with some entertainment, but it doesn’t take over the whole night. So if you’re doing an award ceremony or an interview, wrap up with your team and you want a lovely high quality beautifully tailored musical set, we can deliver that. And it just adds another element to your event without it being the overarching 
Leanne Gunnulson 05:10
event. You know, if you can’t get everyone up and dancing, then listening to something beautiful, played by a high quality musician is the second best thing, I think.
Tony skinner 05:20
Well, I agree with you wholeheartedly. And you know, you do, I would imagine, do a lot of weddings normally. And now weddings are allowed to be back in Sydney? No, they say 20 people only allowed to dance on the dance floor at a social distance. So again, that’s coming back in Melbourne, whoa, what can I say? I feel very sorry for you guys. But somebody was a bit naughty, and it got out. And unfortunately, so many people have paid the price for that.
Leanne Gunnulson 05:55
Too many people are paying the price for that in Melbourne. Yeah, I do that we’ll be in a position come mid November, where we’ll be able to have our our 50 on people, you know, homes will be able to have our parties again, and numbers of COVID transmission of very, very, very low. And we’ve got a couple more weeks, so I think we’ll be fine. And I’m really looking forward to being able to provide people with a live concert in their own home. how glorious will that be? how glorious
Tony skinner 06:26
talking about that, I mean, so I guess Have you guys coped with, you know, the, I’m just gonna say it, the world turning to shit in mid March,
Leanne Gunnulson 06:37
we lost 100% of our business. And then and recently in Victoria, with a lockdown they took away our right to live stream from studios. So we weren’t even able to get into a studio and present a really high quality concert. And that was quite devastating for lots and lots and lots of artists. And the other thing we found is that people forget that you might have trained for something like 15 to 20 years in your instrument. And they think that you will just volunteer your time freely, you’ve got to value the arts for what it does, it changes the atmosphere of your life editing improves the quality of your life. And just like any other service, it deserves to be supported through a monetary transaction, you can ask others to keep volunteering, if in the height of this pandemic, when they’ve lost 100% of their income. You don’t put a budget line to employ them, you know, in the shakeup. So what I’d love to see is that businesses, put budget lines for live entertainment in their 2021 budgets, so that we can and start to really actively employ the artists who have come out and entertain them during the year for free from their homes. You know, lots of my others do live concert streamed from home.
Leanne Gunnulson 08:01
They don’t necessarily have the quality equipment that makes the sound wonderful that you get in a studio. And they’ve been doing that so that they perform because that’s what they do. And also to help raise the spirits of the community. I’d really love people to pay us back and help us out after the devastation of 100% loss of income by making sure that they hire us for geeks, that they put a budget line for entertainment and then they really go out of their way to ensure that everything they’re involved with their social groups, their sporting clubs, their community organizations, they businesses, budget lines for live entertainment, next D so that we can help revitalize what has been a devastating impact of COVID on the entertainment interest industry. We hear a lot about restaurants. We hear a lot about hospitality. But we’re not hearing about the 100% job loss in the arts. 100% of all gigs have disappeared in the arts. I made $1,000 in seven months booking gigs. Wow.
Tony skinner 09:11
I have no answer to that. I I got hit a little bit as well. And luckily in the government’s been in it all lovingly the equalized. But yeah, that’s pretty tough. I mean, how do you possibly get reality is you can’t recover from that or you can do is accepted and move on and look forward to the future?
Leanne Gunnulson 09:34
Yes. And you know, that’s why I try and find it an activity that people can do to help us. We’re not asking for charity, I just want to perform. So really create that budget line. Instead of going with the data and nothing in stages I supply DJs as well. But a live musician and he like guitarist a lot pianist, a band singer songwriters, you know people who are there for us in the crises. half my guys went out and performed live fundraising concerts for the bushfire appeal. Here we are in the midst of this pandemic. And we have sporting organizations not having got the AFL but they wanted 300 dancers to volunteer their time for the entertainment at the AFL, that they can pay to ship grass up to Queensland.
Leanne Gunnulson 10:26
This is what we’re faced with in the industry all the time of failure to recognize that our work has value, and we need to support it. So find me a solution. Mine is please guys coming into 2021 make sure you highlight how to speak your events and then applying them.
Tony skinner 10:47
Absolutely, absolutely. And so it’s you know, you provide different types of bands and you’ve got instrumental and you’ve got classical and newer indigenous. It’s great to see indigenous musicians getting out there. 
Leanne Gunnulson 11:00
Absolutely. Oh, we have astounding Aboriginal musicians in Australia, just astounding. The quality of their art is fantastic. I recently listed, bumpy. She’s a wonderful singer. She’s just got a job for naidoc week for ABC Radio, which is very exciting. I have another astounding artist called Brit walkins. His work on the didgeridoo and dancing is incredible. I’m really proud to have an indigenous page dedicated to our artists feel that’s an important step about making sure we value the contribution of our traditional owners. And that’s a big thing. Like I said, I have a lot of musicians across a range of, of genres. And you know, my classic calls are gorgeous. Nothing better than listen to a string quartet, or harpist. I also had party bands. Good lord. I love a good party band. Well. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that’s what we should be thinking about again, for home.
Tony skinner 12:02
We book once we all get to see it, we’ll get to experience it at home for Christmas and pre Christmas and what have you. That’s bloody fantastic. Iwant to help you guys yeah, that’s fantastic.
Leanne Gunnulson 12:14
Thank you so much. Please help us by booking artists for either live or via zoom, we can’t wait to get back too before. We can’t wait to being able to get in and play and entertain people and bring the joy and create singalongs and make people just have you know, the atmosphere changes with live music, the atmosphere changes to a really positive thing. So come Christmas, I’m not buying giftees I’m buying services like live concerts, with songs dedicated to mom and dad because they live in the country to, to you know, presents for my friends will all be invited to a concert I’m streaming for as my Christmas gift to my family and friends.
Tony skinner 13:04
And I just thought of something, you could do it via an aged care home as well. You could have the family that scattered and you got the relative in the age care home, you could have something joining everybody together and they can all sing along the songs.
Leanne Gunnulson 13:19
Yes. And we’re putting together a Christmas pack just for that, which will be launched next week. And it’s based on sing along Christmas carols. And we give you the whole list of all the songs and we stream it live and you zoom in and you do carols by candlelight. or however you want to do with your people in aged care homes with the people you can’t get to access with your friends overseas. And you can have your own dedicated zoom Chris’s by candlelight.
Tony skinner 13:49
So How fun is that? That’s pretty awesome. Now I think it’s a great idea. You’re gonna have people standing outside and singing to their neighbors or what have you. Just like that in Italy.
Leanne Gunnulson 14:00
Yep, exactly. We’re just trying to find lots of different products, different ways of getting you to have a great time enjoying and sharing music with you. And so our live Krissy stream will be a fantastic one. That’s a great product to buy. We’re making it super, super, super affordable, super, super, super affordable. Really, really making sure that it’s something you can do 
Leanne Gunnulson 14:24
that anyone can afford. And you get the link to zoom in and off you go. Have your own carols by candlelight. I mean how good is
Tony skinner 14:34
Yeah, pretty awesome. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much for your time. Leanne. Anything else you’d like to add?
Leanne Gunnulson 14:41
No, I’ve been it’s been wonderful. Thanks, Tony for giving me the chance to talk to you today and and say hello to everyone and tell em the great stuff we’re doing in https://www.artist-bookings.com/. No problem at all. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.