Ric Salmon, chief growth officer, ATC Group
Ric Salmon was recently promoted to chief growth officer at ATC Group, where he’s worked since 2015. As well as co-founding livestream business Driift, he’s managed acts including Laura Marling, Glen Hansard and Frank Carter. Here, the industry veteran discusses the post-IPO expansion, supporting artists and the role of labels...
Congratulations on the new role – what’s your current focus at the company? “It is a nice, wide role. I’ve always touched on various parts of the business, and I’ve always been excited about the entrepreneurial aspect of being part of a business like this. So much of being a manager is about being entrepreneurial and, hopefully, working with artists that have that same spirit. There are loads of areas that we’re focusing on – continuing growth of the rosters, growth of partnerships, and acquisitions that will be coming along in the future. The growth of the business internationally is a big area of focus, in the US and in other markets.”
How do you reflect on the evolution of the industry in your 10 years at the company? “We’ve seen huge transformation across every sector. I feel like I’ve learned more in the last five years than in the previous 25, it’s been that transformative, really. That’s exciting, but it’s also incredibly challenging. I think in all sectors of the industry, it feels like you’re under downward pressure from every angle. That’s whether you’re a major label, who are going through enormous changes at the moment, an indie label, promoter, agent, manager or, obviously, an artist.”
ATC Group reported a 100% increase in revenues in 2024 – what was key to that result? “It’s a mix of things. Again, rewinding to 10 years ago when I joined, we had around 30 to 35 management clients and the live agency had started maybe a year and a half prior to me coming to the company. Fast forward to today, we’ve got 125 management clients. The live agency has got 500 and Sandbag, a company we acquired a couple of years ago, represents around 350 artists for merch. So across the roster, there’s not far off 1,000 artists. It has grown organically, other than the [majority stake] acquisition we did with Raw Power last year.”
Has the IPO in 2021 helped with your expansion? “Going public has been a great experience for the company. You have to grow up a lot when you do something like that,
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you’re under a lot of scrutiny. That process we went through to restructure, to ensure that we were robust enough as a business to handle being a public company, was a really good thing for us. Adam Driscoll coming in as Group CEO [in 2021] has just been transformative. He’s an unbelievable operator and has been incredible for the company.”
With ATC Group working across multiple areas, how are you bringing them together to better serve your artist clients? “A big area of focus is that integrated services concept, which has been a very natural process. We identified that there were real opportunities to collaborate and cross-pollinate between the different business units. A year ago, there was very little interaction between the different business units. If you were to simplify it into three core disciplines – management, live touring and then services, which includes merch – I think there were no artists where we did all three disciplines. That [concept] has since grown quite quickly, though.”
What can you offer clients when you combine those services that ATC Group provides? “It’s not something that we’ve been pushing or forcing. When an artist feels that an ATC agent is the right person to work with and that Sandbag is the right person to do their merch, then we’ve found that, actually, providing two or more services is working really well. That includes artists like The Smile, the Radiohead guys, Polly Harvey, Black Country, New Road, Glen Hansard – some of our key clients. We can be more efficient in the way that we work, cross-pollinating between the businesses. And, crucially, we’ve got our heads around the internal systems we’ve been able to create to ensure that we’re delivering a better service.”
Where does livestream service Driift fit into all of this in 2025? “It was an amazing learning curve starting Driift. It’s a shame that [the livestreaming of concerts] dropped off as quickly as it did at the end of the pandemic, which we kind of expected, if I’m honest. But we’re really pleased that we’ve been able to find
a route to keeping it as part of the group, because the platform is amazing and it works really well for the right project.”
You can cover a lot of ground with your artists, but would you go into the label business? “I don’t think we would ever start a label to be a rights owner. We’ve set up various distribution partnerships so that when artists need a funnel to put music out, then we can support that. In some cases, we’ll invest in it ourselves to help them in the early stages. But we love to work with every type of label. And we love the idea of supporting artists through distribution partnerships – we’ve done a lot through AWAL and The Orchard, we’ve got a great relationship with Secretly Distribution. It’s entirely dependent on the artist and the project.”
Is there a cap on how much further ATC Group will expand its operations? “The answer to that is no, but I think one is always very mindful to ensure that the culture of the business remains on solid ground. In many ways, the most exciting thing that’s happened to us through this period of growth over the last couple of years has been that we’ve been able to attract even better and more exciting young executive talent, whether that’s a manager or an assistant or an agent. That’s so important and crucial for us as a business as we go forward.”
Finally, you recently expanded further into live by taking a majority stake in Brighton’s Concorde 2 venue. What was the thinking there? “It’s a natural area for growth. We acquired a promoter called Joy Concerts in Brighton last year. James Mckeown is the founder and runs that business – he’s an amazing talent. So expanding on the offering that Joy have through their promoting work into the running of venues felt like a natural fit. Adam Driscoll’s background ostensibly comes from that world at MAMA Group, which was a venue owner. Fundamentally, it’s just another way for us to be able to support younger artists in their development through those early stages of their career.”
Music Week | 13
WORDS: Andre Paine
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