International artist booking in Japan.

The fee is usually the smaller half of the number. Flights for the artist and their travelling party, accommodation to rider standard, ground transport, visa and immigration work, freight or hired backline, production to meet the technical rider, and the withholding treatment that applies to a non-resident performer paid for work in Japan all sit outside it. We quote the fee and the destination-side costs as one figure precisely because a client who sees only the fee has not been shown the booking.

A paid performance is work, and work needs the correct status — a tourist entry does not cover it, whatever the artist did last time somewhere else. The process runs through an inviting entity in Japan, takes weeks rather than days, and the timeline varies by nationality and by the artist’s own documentation. Treat it as the long-lead item that decides the date, and give us passport details and the performance description early rather than after the contract.

Holds are given by the artist’s management, not by us, and they are courtesies rather than rights. A first hold can be challenged by a second enquiry, at which point the client has a short window to confirm or release. If a date genuinely matters, the honest advice is to confirm it rather than to hold it, because the challenge always arrives at the worst moment.

The contract decides it, which is why we read the cancellation and force-majeure clauses at quotation stage rather than at signature. Practically, we route international artists to arrive with a clear buffer day in Japan and we agree in writing what happens to the room if the act does not appear — a local alternate on standby, a shortened programme, or a rebate. A buyer who has never asked that question is carrying the risk without knowing it.

Explera works through established artist-management agencies across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America and Latin America rather than holding an exclusive roster of its own. That matters for a buyer: it means the shortlist is built around your event instead of around one agency's catalogue, and it means we can say no to an act that is wrong for your room.

Six to twelve months for an international headline act, and longer if the date falls in a touring window. Regional and local talent can move faster — four to eight weeks is realistic for most formats.

Availability is the constraint, not ambition. An artist with a tour schedule may have three possible dates in a year, and those dates are gone months before an event brief is written. Bring us the date early and the shortlist is wide; bring it late and the honest answer may be a different category of act.

A written quote per enquiry, covering the artist fee and the destination-side costs as one figure. We do not publish artist fees — they are set by the artist and their management, vary by date and market, and any published number would be wrong the day it shipped. Quotes go to the agent at net rates; delivery is white-label.