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Hi everyone I am brand new to this site and have started to look for an agent for my dd. Has anyone heard of Buttercups Agency ? Advice would be really appreciated.

Hello there and welcome to NAPM

I don't know anything about the agency I'm afraid.

I had a quick look through the website. There are quite a lot of things that strike me as efficient/professional (though a website can be misleading) but there are a few things that seem worth pointing out:

1. There is no filter for children's profiles, so anyone can look at them (many children's agencies insist on a secure log-in for casting directors etc).

2. The photographs look good, but they do appear to insist that you use their photographer and it isn't clear what this costs.

3. They say "n addition we will be putting children forward for musical theatre productions and we will require your child to attend dance, drama and singing workshops.". I don't know what kind of commitment this is and what it costs. I find it a bit off-putting, unless it's an audition workshop. Do they run the workshops, or do they just insist that your child attends classes that you organise (either way, I don't much like the "require" element of it - what if your child is a brilliant actor but does not aspire to perform in/does not have the talent for musical theatre? Do you still have to shell out for dance and singing workshops?). Also, it obviously isn't good industry practice to submit children for musical theatre productions if they don't have the required skills - though they might not mean that they automatically submit every appropriately aged child (though this is how it reads).

4. I'm not sure whether they audition children, any good agent needs to know the skill level/personality/attitude of the person they represent.

5. As a new agency actively seeking submissions, they already have a lot of children signed up. As a "small boutique agency", just how many are they intending to sign up ?

6. They don't state their commission rate on the website so it's not possible to see whether this is reasonable.

Wow, Thank you so much for this. I really am new to this so it's really appreciated!

We can always rely on pg to look at things sensibly.

Thank you francescasmum

By the way, just because I haven't heard of them doesn't mean they are not a legitimate, good agency! My children are grown up now and in any case didn't do all that much professional work when they were younger. I'm not really very knowledgeable about which are good and which are not (and in any case, what works for one may not work for another). It's just that there are "things to look out for" whenever you are assessing agencies. They don't appear to make an up front charge (though it's worth investigating "hidden" charges) so that's a good start!