After the death of its famous founder, Mushroom music launches new spin-off
Matthew Gudinski has launched his first new business since the 2021 death of his father and Mushroom Group founder Michael, creating the first gig booking agency to be majority-owned by his famous family.
Mushroom Booking Agency is the result of a merger between Vita Music Group, a booking agency started in 2015 by Guven Yilmaz, and three booking agents previously employed directly by Mushroom Group in Shelley Liu, Sam Rogers and Matt Thomson.
Matthew Gudinski (left) with Guven Yilmaz, who have partnered on Mushroom Booking Agency — the first gig-booker that Mushroom has majority-owned. Brian Purnell
Booking agents are brokers between musical talent and the buyers of that talent, who might be tour promoters, the owners of live music venues, or the organisers of music festivals. Agents seek the best deal for their acts, ensure the artists are paid (after taking their industry-standard 10 per cent commission), and often advise on the strategy for a tour so that half-empty halls are avoided.
In merging Vita into the Mushroom group of which he is chief executive, 38-year-old Gudinski has got himself one of the biggest prizes in Australian live music — dance music duo Peking Duk, with whom Yilmaz has worked for a decade, and who masterminded a 16-date national tour in March that sold almost 20,000 tickets.
“That’s a big result given where people are at financially,” Yilmaz said.
“In past years we’d fill a 5000-capacity room like [Sydney’s] Hordern Pavilion two times over, but this year I said to the guys why don’t we get more intimate with the fans. Let’s sell out a 2,500-seat theatre, make it insane, and let the word spread? It worked.”
Peking Duk members Reuben Styles (left) and Adam Hyde. They defied the cost-of-living
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