Lindsey Schiffman of TBA Agency on Fostering Inclusivity and Connecting Generations in Live Music

Many in the live industry share the same story about breaking into the business. They may have caught the live music bug from experiencing a show at their favorite venue or working at the box office during peak season.

For Lindsey Schiffman, the gateway into the business wasn’t through the crowd or a low-paying gig but rather by taking the stage and handling some of the behind-the-scenes work for her bandmates.

“I played in bands growing up, and I would book our shows when I was in college,” Schiffman, an agent at TBA Agency, tells Pollstar . “I also worked for my college radio station and was booking all the concerts that we put on.”

Schiffman, a University of Southern California grad, played the guitar, bass and, at times, the violin. As a musician and a booker, she was a jack of all trades for any band, rising to the occasion to contribute in any way she could.

The live music bug was officially caught.

That eagerness and willingness to take on such responsibilities paved the way for Schiffman to move away from the stage toward the agency side of the business, and those qualities would help her better understand the artist and propel them into bigger rooms.

One of her clients seeing great success on the road is beloved Midwest emo band American Football, who released a new album in May, their first LP in seven years, and have ascended into theaters. In 2024, the band performed at the 771-capacity El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles. The band returned to L.A. in May and played a sold-out concert at the iconic Wiltern, which can accommodate up to 2,300 fans.

It’s understandable for bands like American Football to experience such a revival, with millennials, now grown up with disposable income, wanting a hit of nostalgia from their beloved emo and alternative rock bands from the 2000s.

But Schiffman has noticed something different with her client’s recent run.

“I would say 80% of the fans that have been coming out to shows are ages of around 17 to 25,” says Schiffman, who worked at The Windish Agency and Paradigm before joining TBA when it launched in 2020. “They’re young. They weren’t alive when the first record came out.”

And it’s not only happening in major markets like L.A. American Football is playing Fuji Rock in Japan this summer, and the quartet has sold 3,000 tickets in China.

“It’s worldwide. They’re bigger than they have ever been, which I feel is very counterintuitive because their first record came out so long ago,” Schiffman says.

That kind of resurgence with acts like American Football has boosted the live music industry to record grosses since the COVID-19 pandemic. While the business has undergone major changes with the emergence of streaming platforms and social media, Schiffman believes the pandemic altered younger generations’ perspectives and outlooks on life. Phones may still be prevalent in the live experience (many young fans can’t help but record for Instagram and TikTok), but their desire to connect outside the screen has helped some of Schiffman’s clients perform in bigger rooms.

“Everyone got on the internet and unplugged from real life,” she says. “A lot of kids who are in college now were robbed of some of those very formative years, years when I was going to shows all the time. I think it makes sense that while connections can be found on the internet, there’s nothing that compares to having that in person.”

But their longing goes beyond human connection. Young audiences have revived physical media with vinyl reemerging as a major contributor to the music business, and they have developed a curiosity for a culture that peaked well before they were born.

“I feel like it makes sense,” Schiffman says. “You don’t get those vinyl inserts with streaming, and, in a way, it gives you a little more insight into the mind of the artist. It’s interesting.”

Young fans are even purchasing CDs. Schiffman noticed many of those at American Football shows purchasing more discs than vinyl.

“I don’t know why that is, but there were kids buying their entire discography on CD, and I was like, ‘Where do you even think you’re going to play that?’ Your car doesn’t even have a CD player,” Schiffman says.

It’s a testament to American Football’s ability to connect with fans of all ages and introduce the younger ones to new experiences, even those that involve taking a disc out of a plastic case and inserting it into a CD player.

Another one of Schiffman’s clients, feeble little horse, finds similar ways to organically build a relationship with their fans and an inclusive community, making her job slightly easier when it comes to developing a marketing strategy.

“With feeble, I feel like their fan base shares a lot of their core values. … A lot of that just comes from them being a DIY band just playing in a basement in Pittsburgh,” Schiffman says. “It is a very different approach for every single client, but the ones that are the most exciting to me are the ones that do engage the fans rather than just having ads thrown at them.”

Putting in the work to build meaningful relationships and uplifting communities are values championed by TBA Agency, which represents a number of queer artists and promotes a diverse roster and workplace.

“I’ve worked at a number of agencies, and TBA has been a really special place where I feel like I’ve been given the space and encouragement to truly develop artists and my own career,” Schiffman says of her bosses. “I’ve been able to build a roster that really resonates with a lot of artists and peers throughout the industry, just by signing clients that I’m genuinely a fan of, personally. Staying true to that value and being encouraged to stay true to that has helped me remain really invested in my job and has helped my clients’ careers. I try to help all my clients grow their careers in a direction that aligns with them and their authentic selves.”

_Originally reported by [Pollstar](https://news.pollstar.com/2026/06/18/exec-profile-tba-agencys-lindsey-schiffman-on-building-inclusive-communities-gen-z-connecting-with-millennial-acts/)._