Becca Higgins, Rolling Stone
Becca Higgins, Rolling Stone
💭 Thoughts on the importance of supporting analog creativity, American Fiction, and the best way to spend time with a complete body of work.
Becca Higgins is responsible for booking and managing artist appearances across Rolling Stone’s branded and editorial verticals, including facilitating interview opportunities, digital content captures, live performances, branded content & events, and intimate in-office advance listenings with the RS staff. Prior to joining Rolling Stone in 2021, Becca was a Senior Talent Buyer for Blue Note Entertainment Group, where she booked over 2,000 live concerts, comedy shows, and experiences internationally. Becca’s hobbies include: long walks in Brooklyn, fretting over her plants, and making existential dread fun again. She also wants you to know that she just rewatched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and it still rules.
🎯 Current focus
I’m always most excited about organizing live experiences for fans. That’s what I’ve enjoyed doing the most since my first music business gig when I was a 19-year-old touring merch girl: being part of a production that engages audiences and builds community. Now that I work in media, sometimes the fans I cater to are brand clients, sometimes they’re valued subscribers, and sometimes they’re my own colleagues. But no matter what, they’re always humans who have at one point had an emotional connection to a song, album, artist, or band. Getting to facilitate that in-person exchange of energy between musicians and their audience is what I get excited about and look forward to working on every day.
💿 The best way to spend time with a complete body of work
I love my bluetooth CD player. I’ve been overwhelmed by streaming lately, and have been feeling nostalgic for the years when I had no choice but to spend a lot of time with a single, complete body of work, which I would inevitably grow close to — or passionately disdain. So send me your CDs, y’all! I’m out here in these streets with my discman.
My favorite movie right now is American Fiction. I was so excited about this film that I immediately wanted to read about it, talk about it, and watch it again - and I did! I also ugly cried and laughed out loud (sometimes simultaneously) throughout my first viewing experience, which did take place on an airplane (apologies to the woman who sat next to me, if you’re reading this). It was just such a dynamic adaptation of a complex story, with lots of heart, humor, and really well-drawn characters, and I felt both moved and challenged for the first time in a long time.
🪅 Celebrating little wins
Lately I’ve been focusing on taking small steps every day to position myself for a future that is stable, balanced, and maximally aligns with my values. I’m thinking big about what I want my life to look like in 10-20 years, and I’m planning my route to get there. It’s a really exciting project*, planning one’s future, and it comes with all sorts of lessons along the way - for example, how to set boundaries so you can focus on progress, how to reprogram your brain to let go of psychological habits that no longer serve you, and how important it is to celebrate all of your little wins.
*it’s also really hard and kinda scary, but another thing I’m working on is reframing challenges into opportunities!
🤝 Staying grounded in this business
I’m part of a women-in-live-music group, and I look up to each of the amazing women in that community. The members of the group include the generation of women who paved the way for my cohort to have a place in the music business, all the way to the next generation of women who are just starting to enter the field. It is also made up of people who represent every role in the music industrial machine - artists, marketing directors, label reps, agents, talent buyers, managers, tour managers, production managers, venue owners, and more. What they all have in common is that they are some of the hardest working, most compassionate, supportive, professional problem solvers I’ve ever met. It’s hard to stay grounded in this business, and it’s often really hard to be a woman here as well, so I look up to these individuals above all for doing just that.
🎺 The importance of supporting analog creativity
Ok, so I don’t know if they “got it right”, but that recent iPad commercial where they crush all the instruments, recording equipment, works of art, etc. to illustrate the “everything-you-need-in-one-place: iPad Pro” message sure did make some noise.
In response to that ad, I thought it was cool to see people get really hyped up in support of analog creativity! I also appreciate that it gave me some respite from thinking about RFK Jr’s brain worms.
Follow Becca on Instagram & Linkedin check out her website here.