ABOUT
Service | Pricing | Marketing | History | ThE LOW DOWN ON JAMES DAWSON
The Launch Squad was launched early in the year of 2006. The Launch Squad aims to be a prominent motivator in the growth of Sydney’s music scene, for all types of artists, be they rock bands, jazz quartets, DJ’s or folk soloists.
The Launch Squad’s Managing Director James Dawson has supplied entertainment for RSL Clubs, City Councils and hotels over the past 10 years, including: East Leagues Club, Bittini Hotel Group, DHI Hotels, Manning Bar, Fairfield RSL, St George Leagues, Steelers Club, Luna Park Sydney, Parramatta Council, Ryde Council, and Liverpool Council, to name a few.
The Launch Squad has been providing a range of entertainment to venues around Greater Sydney and provides its clients access to a reliable, trustworthy and ethical service.
As a venue consultant The Launch Squad acts as the intermediaries between artists and venues, and we facilitate a healthy balance between the two parties. This is achieved by acting on behalf of venues and sourcing appropriate artists to perform. We maintain the artist’s integrity, and also ensure that the venue is happy, by providing cost relevant artists, and an unrivalled dedication to service.
The Launch Squad prides itself on three main points of consideration;
Service
We are committed to providing ‘hands on’ service which is currently unrivalled. As we are a smaller agency we do not employ staff, which means that as the Managing Director, James Dawson will personally be handling;
- all enquiries
- artist bookings and payments to artists
- invoices to clients
- mediating with clients personally on a regular basis
As we are working for venues, our focus is to get the best deals on entertainment for you, we work with venues every day to ensure we keep venues running costs down and to enhance your patron's experience within your venue.
Pricing
The Launch Squad is determined to attain on your behalf the most cost effective night of entertainment possible, whilst not wavering in our commitment to provide you with the most relevant and best quality act possible.
Marketing
As well as providing your venue and event with venue consultant services, we also provide a marketing arm to our service. Which upon consulting with you we design a marketing plan which will include new internet driven mediums as well as tried and true print and radio. We take care of everything from creation to design to implementation.
JAMES DAWSON HISTORY
The Launch Squad’s Managing Director, James Dawson, has a long and colourful background in the music industry. From 1997, James managed his own band, LUKSTAT from their first show in Caringbah to sharing the stage with Grinspoon, Front End Loader, and Rumanastone. From there in 2001, James began employment with Allied Artists, Australia’s (then) premier Country Booking Agency. James worked directly with GANGgajang, Rick Price, James Blundell and many country music artists, booking extensive rural and regional tours.
At the same time James played a key role in establishing The Acoustic Lounge, which was a booking agency tailored to meet the requirements of Sydney’s burgeoning acoustic movement. The Acoustic Lounge played a fundamental role in the development stages of Damien Leith and Lior’s music career, offering both acts the platform to launch their prospective solo careers.
In late 2005, James left The Acoustic Lounge, and went to work at Sydney University’s 1,000 capacity Manning Bar. His duties included sourcing artists, booking shows, artist payment and event management. James was involved with shows such as: Matchbook Romance, Alexis On Fire, Faker, The Beautiful Girls, Sunk Loto, The Camels, and Silverstein. James was also responsible for the implementation of Sydney Uni’s Tuesday lunchtime Acoustic Sessions. James concluded working at the Manning Bar in July 2006, to move back into running his own business, which is The Launch Squad.
Whilst still employed at Sydney University James developed The Launch Squad. The Launch Squad came into existence as there was an overwhelming demand from Sydney’s musicians who wanted to work with James. The Launch Squad is now an active force in Sydney’s musical landscape, both providing venues with a diverse range of entertainers and also providing venue consultants and agents with high quality musicians from The Launch Squad stable.
The LOW DOWN on James Dawson
James attended both primary and high school out at Campbelltown, there’s an all blokes school that sits on top of a hill overlooking the town, he went to that one. From an early age James was obsessed with music, and quotes The Police greatest hits tapeas his first foray into music, the tape went missing years ago, but the memory of it lingers still. A little band from LA came to the fore soon after, Guns N Roses were also the inspiration behind James picking up the guitar and belting out truly awful renditions of GNR solos @ 14 years old. However his $400 guitar would always make an appearance in Year 9 music class, and together with his class mates they would devour through Green Day, Nirvana, Rat Cat and Pearl Jam songs. Much to the dismay of the rest of the school population, they weren’t that good back then!
From these auspicious beginnings James was a part of post high school band Assume The Position, which lost a member and became Dead Air, which lost another member and became the 3 piece powerhouse that was Lukstat. For a brief while James was in local Sydney band Land Speed Record until they disbanded, James can be still seen sporting a top hat and curly black wig as Slash (yes his solos are way better now) in Sydney’s Ultimate Guns N Roses Tribute, Lies N Destruction.
Time out for James at the moment is playing with his young son Spencer or getting onto Xbox Live and engrossing himself in the first person shooter multiplayer phenomena that is Call Of Duty. He has also grown quite fond of reading again, and has been quite enamoured with Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter, Patrick Rothfuss' The Kingkiller Chronicles, for a real easy read Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse books get a run, but the TV show is much better. And when he gets up off the couch this young-ish man can be found either strolling or jogging around his home town of Panania.
