Chelsea Wood, founder of Wood Management, identifies financial sustainability as the biggest challenge facing her as a working-class manager representing working-class artists. With 13 years in management, she says touring costs are forcing artists to decline shows they cannot afford to play.
A roster built through personal connections
Wood currently manages Finn Forster, Dom Malin and Maius Mollis. She found her first Wood Management artist through a mutual friend while developing her roster.
The introduction came during a conversation with someone she rarely sees, making the encounter feel like a chance event that changed her direction.
Wood considers establishing her own company her foremost career achievement. She says the business has allowed her to help her artists and hundreds of independent musicians through work with Generator and Help Musicians.
Another milestone was watching Forster support Stereophonics in stadiums and arenas. Those performances strengthened their ambition for him to headline venues of comparable size.
Planning and financial pressures
Wood says most working days are positive. She finds the greatest satisfaction in advancing immediate priorities alongside longer-term goals, drawing on her preference for organisation and planning.
Days dominated by resolving other people’s problems leave less time for priority tasks. Although she views that work as progress, she finds it less rewarding than being able to plan ahead.
Wood sees live performance as important because it avoids questions about artificial intelligence (AI) and authenticity. Yet she says the expense of touring increasingly puts shows beyond artists’ financial reach.
She welcomes funding intended to help artists and managers sustain their work:
- Liveline and UKAT, which help offset losses on headline tours and enable artists to continue touring.
- The Music Growth Fund, which supports managers.
Wood says working-class artists and managers face greater difficulty than ever in trying to establish themselves.
Community and current listening
As a solo manager, Wood values the community offered by the Music Managers Forum (MMF) as a place to discuss ideas and concerns. She says its events help managers make those connections.
Wood is also an MMF Certified Manager, a designation recognising her professional knowledge and experience in music management.
Her current listening is Twenty One Pilots, with their latest two albums, Clancy and Breach, in regular rotation.
Her Instagram accounts are @wood.management and @chelseawood89.
