I recently asked a booking agent whether they might be interested in working with me to pursue folk festival bookings.

They said no.

Not because they disliked the music. Not because they thought I was impossible to work with. Not because they believed there wasn’t an audience. They simply felt it would require too much effort.

There is something refreshing about someone admitting, “This isn’t how I want to spend my days.” I appreciated the honesty. Better that than months of unanswered emails and optimistic promises slowly evaporating into silence. Still, the exchange reminded me how peculiar the music business can be. Musicians spend decades trying to become better artists. Agents spend decades trying to identify artists worth representing. Yet sometimes the deciding factor is whether the projected return justifies the hours required to make the phone calls. Everyone claims to be looking for commitment, but only if it arrives with minimal emotional labour, and a healthy retirement plan. You begin to realize that rejection often has to do with business models, existing rosters, financial calculations, family obligations, changing priorities, and whether someone feels like climbing another hill. None of those realities make the rejection feel particularly good, but they do make it less personal.

The search continues.

Somewhere there is an agent who enjoys building careers, who sees a folk festival not as too much work but as the beginning of another conversation. Until then, I keep booking shows and making the occasional awkward phone call. Persistence has always been the most essential instrument in a musician’s toolkit.