ABOUT
Artist Management : Tour Booking : Consultancy
Kick Arts UK was set up by Barney Jeavons to collaborate with musicians, venues and other creative businesses. We aim to be the trusted friend you turn to for help, nurturing careers and offering advice and support. Together we can create interesting events and put the steps in place for you to achieve your artistic and financial objectives.
Since setting up in Autumn 2019, Kick Arts has worked across artist management, tour booking and one-to-one arts consultations. We've been integral in successfully securing Arts Council funding for 8 projects, and for the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic Barney also worked as Music Venue Trust's Regional Coordinator for the South East - helping to save over 90 venues from closure. Barney has also been an Associate Lecturer in Music Business at University for the Creative Arts, and delivers occasional guest lectures elsewhere.
The artists we represent are all outstanding in their field, and include several award winners. In a management capacity we work with Dominie Hooper, The Exact Opposite, Lucy Farrell and Chris Wood. As tour bookers we represent Rowan Rheingans' "Dispatches on the Red Dress", Sarah Smout, Stick in the Wheel, Platform 4 and Hannah James, and we are a key collaborator with void_null across their various projects. We also set up the Illuminate literature festival and have previously managed Reuben, Sick Joy and Exit Child .
Our one-to-one arts consultations are available to all, from individuals to organisations, and we love finding solutions for whatever is holding you back.
Kick Arts UK is headed up by Barney, who has over 30 years experience in events, including 17 years at the helm of an award-winning venue* - music, comedy and problem solving are key strengths. Other roles have included artist management, community arts development, venue technical manager, tour management, gig promotion and venue programming.
*'Best Arts Centre Teamwork' in the Live UK Music Awards - Winner 2018
Finalist 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017.
'Access Starts Online Award' in the Attitude is Everything Awards - Finalist 2019
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ARTIST CONSULTANCY
In just one consultation with Barney you’ll understand why he’s such a pillar of the UK music scene. His wealth of knowledge and experience creep out of each little anecdote and never in a way thats overbearing or snobby. If you’re an artist lacking direction, allow Kick Arts to help chart your course.
Ben - Arid Wave
Barney is an invaluable mentor to us. His advice is spot-on and he asks the right questions to get our brains moving. I'd heartily recommend a series of mentoring sessions with Barney to any developing artist.
Dan Hope - Mother Sky
Barney from @kickartsuk has been such a help for me as an emerging artist. His advice and guidance has been so helpful along with his huge amounts of positivity and experience. He has been my guru for all stuff music business! Highly recommend and can't wait to get another session booked in. 🙏
Jamie Halama
Dear Barney, I'm so lucky that we met! Your advice and grounded enthusiasm were exactly what I needed to take the most necessary steps forward in pursuing my dreams as an artist who is still finding her feet in the music business. You seem to know all the right questions! 😉 Thank you for making me feel understood and supported!🙏
Rael Koiv
Thank you very much for seeing me this week Barney. I got a LOT out of it and I'm really excited to push forward.
huske monde
Barney is incredible, friendly and knowledgeable. His experience in the industry shines through when talking to him. He has helped us to see more clearly the path on our musical journey.
JV - SOS
We contacted Barney with a view to receiving some guidance on our next step as a band. He was able to accommodate us very quickly and the process of setting up the meeting was quick and painless.
During the meeting Barney was friendly and professional and helped guide us towards achieving our agreed goals. His advice was concise, realistic, achievable and tailored precisely towards us. The meeting also contained a healthy dose of humour which always helps!
We would absolutely recommend working with him and hope to check back in with him in the near future for a catch up!
Rob - Harsh Language Band
"Barney is a honest and thoughtful mentor. Our talk really helped to energise and push along a project I am working on. Strategic planning, with just the right amount kindness that can feel amis in our industry. "
Ethan Proctor - Bridges
We had a great session with Barney. We really felt like he understood what we needed in a short time, having taken the time to listen to our music and what might be useful to us specifically. We would definitely like some more time with him, but even one session gave us some focussed thoughts that we could move forward with. Thanks!
Anna Pool - Wise Women
“You’ve helped me so much over the years dude and continue to do so to this day. Great to have such a positive and experienced voice to guide me through what has been a pretty bleak time for the world and for music. Really loving our sessions and I can’t wait for the next one.”
Kamran Ramsden
VENUE CONSULTANCY
“Barney is incredibly intuitive and did exactly what we needed him to do, despite the fact at the outset, we probably didn’t quite know ourselves what that was. He didn’t push his own services but worked with us to build our knowledge and confidence, giving us genuine ownership over our music programme and its future development. He asked all the right questions and helped us work out the answers, as well as helping us recognise our own strengths and the opportunities they presented. Plus, he is an absolute delight to work with and left us smiling after every meeting.”
Annabel Turpin - ARC
Barney facilitated a great team session for our venue – focused on music. His wide-ranging experience means he has a case study for every eventuality, which makes for a very engaging and personal experience.
Barney is adept at enabling everyone to be heard and feel more confident in their contributions.
It was an enjoyable and constructive session – well worth time out of a very busy day – with a list of positive and practical actions as a result.
Maria Reeves - The Horton Epsom
My name's Chris Smith and my wife Liz and I own and operate The Chambers in Folkestone, Kent, since we opened it 25 years ago. We're a Grassroots music venue that also offers food and extensive bar too.
Barney was our Regional Co-ordinator for Music Venues Trust through lock-down. I can say with absolute confidence that were it not for Barney we wouldn't be here today still operating. At a time when ALL that we knew was crumbling around us, Barney was a constant for us in so many ways.
To us, he was:
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A pillar of support.
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Hugely knowledgeable.
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Calm and considered in his advises.
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A BRILLIANT interface between bewildered, panicking venue owners and the source of financial support that often seemed out of reach.
On our behalf, he was able to make our case to those that had never encountered our venue, with such clarity, community worth and vigour and to such a strong degree that we find our relatively large business still able to fight in the market place we've called 'home' for quarter of a century.
Barney's consultation strengths include - but don't stop at - high level funding, promotion, budgeting, tour management, profit and loss management accounts. In particular his band agency and management strengths make him a formidable ally to anyone looking to advance in the music industry.
We've worked with Barney all through the Cultural Recovery Fund program and owe our business to him. We've used his consultation skills since then and are happy to say we use his strategies weekly in our post lock-down world.
I would not hesitate for a moment to recommend anyone looking for advancement and assistance in any of the above areas to put Barney Jeavons at the top of their list. We'll 100% be working with Barney again in the future
Chris Smith - The Chambers
COLLABORATORS
Barney has been a joy to work with. Endlessly problem solving, honest, passionate and diligent.
He intuitively understands how to support artists and develop organisations and he genuinely wants to find the best solutions for the best intentions.
Catherine Church / Artistic Director/Platform 4
When Kick Arts first popped up on the radar I thought it was just Barney, evolving naturally into a new role after spending years and years running the most relevant and loved arts venue this side of London.
However after a year and a half down the road of working with Kick Arts, the first word that comes to mind to describe our relationship with Kick Arts is ‘friend’. A welcome friend too - literally walking with us through the highs and the lows of attempting to develop an audience experience-driven act whilst live performance culture has slowly been annihilated.
Laughing, plotting, sharing, staring hard at the difficult questions...
Barn was a friend before Kick Arts and void_null ever existed and I know he’ll be a friend to the pair of us long after we’ve stopped attempting to do anything interesting. There’s something very special about having somebody speak words of encouragement, wisdom and direction at a time when it’s perfectly needed. That’s Kick Arts, even when it’s at 11pm at night when you're trying to hit a deadline for an Arts Council proposal and you have Barney there with you obviously not going anywhere until the thing is done.
‘If' Kick Arts were super heroes then their super power would be ’networking’. Barney’s connections are quantum in nature…which basically means that believing you understand how he operates on that level is proof of the fact that you don’t. Even when he’s dealing with our very specialised and awkward ‘LiveAV’ corner of the arts, his power to throw up connections and interest in what we do is a little strange, if I’m honest… and although Barney is the ‘face’ of Kick Arts, he’s more like some kind of portal into the beating heart of the Arts. Yes, he has folk like Lorna who work with him at KA to help things keep moving, but the organisation seems to run on multiple levels in all directions, connecting with funding organisations, venues, artists and audiences alike. And I think it’s Barney’s experience of providing engagement for audiences for years that is really key to the approach that they take and the support and advice that they offer.
Apart from that…there’s not much to say really…I’d move on if I were you.
void_null
"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together"