Musica Gratia Musicae

I started Operavi as an independent artist management company in July of 2020 while living at my grandmothers house in Pleasant Hill, CA once COVID lay waste to the live music industry. After 3 years of toiling in Austin, TX attempting to simultaneously run a staging production company, event promotions, and a booking agency, the weight of my inexperience and underfunded ventures collapsed following a bust festival just a few months before the pandemic. In the quiet lull, I began to rethink the entire system that booking agents and promoters currently operate under. Why does a promoter have to be at the crux of the booking process? I’m a booking agent, but why do i feel like a used car salesman trying to pitch artists to promoters? Do we really need this middleman? What if the promoter was given a slice of the pie to promote the show without inheriting the risk? What would it look like if artists organized to book themselves directly with venues instead? What if we built repeatable door deals instead of risky guarantees? What if these repeatable door deals were paired with repeatable tour routes? Would it be possible to build artist’s market exposure without existing market demand? Would it be possible to build new communities, spark local curiosity, and regularly schedule shows with these independent venues at no upfront cost to them?

Would it really be possible to share music for the sake of music?

My obsession with this concept of a sustainable touring model began. Artists having the infrastructure of established routes to travel while sharing the logistical costs. Venues having the ability to schedule regularly programmed tour packages with a standardized deal. A centralized union of artists, regardless of management or agency, that could provide an alternative system of supplying music to local communities.

Operavi is no longer just a management company, nor has it ever been a booking agency. Operavi is a that alterative system. It is a non-profit that exists to put music in venues across America and to foster communities that are struggling to keep the arts alive. It is a cooperative that allows artists to reclaim the ownership of their ticket sales, to skirt politics of the industry, and to give the opportunity for emerging artists to share their art with the country in a way previously unfeasible for most. Operavi is a systemic change in the bookings process which will shift the leverage and control back to the artist. Acting as an aggregate union, Operavi hopes to bind independent organizations under the simple mantra, Musica Gratia Musicae, music for the sake of music. We look forward to partnering with all professionals in the space and offer mutual aid in an industry defined by rugged individualism.

Scott Villanueva
Founder, Operavi