A Loving Light
Copyright© 2026 by Marc Nobbs
Chapter 7: Something Good
“Anything else we need to discuss, Glenn?” I asked.
“I’m afraid so. I have a list.”
“Marie,” I said, “next time we do this, perhaps we need a proper agenda like for a Board Meeting.”
“There’s no point,” Glenn said. “My many, many years of working with creatives tell me that even if you do have an agenda, it gets thrown out within ten minutes of the meeting starting. Creatives have a habit of ... hijacking things.” He grinned. “Don’t they, Carly?”
She blushed.
“Okay, well, let’s go through your list.”
“We need to appoint a tour manager. Once we have one, they will find the rest of the crew. This is essential. You could have the best show on the planet, but without a tour manager to coordinate it all, your tour’s going to be a disaster.”
“Do you have anyone in mind?” I asked.
“I have already put the word out and started to go through the applications.”
“Can I leave that to you to sort out? Pick the best one?”
“You could, or you could interview them yourself when you come out here and see who you and Carly think will be the best fit.”
“Come out there?” Carly and I said at the same time.
“Er ... Yeah,” said Ben. “That’s the er ... complication I was going to tell you about before Carly showed up early.”
I glanced at Lana, then back at the screen. “Care to elaborate?”
“The whole point of doing this through a US subsidiary is ease of banking,” Glenn said. “A US company needs a US bank account, and that makes it easier to pay your invoices, run a petty cash float, be nimble with your contingency, and it makes it easy to receive money when the revenue starts rolling in.”
I nodded. “Understood. Makes perfect sense.”
“Unfortunately for you, or maybe fortunately, depending on your point of view, the only way to open a business bank account is in person. The bank has to verify the identities of a business’s beneficial owners in person. You need to walk into a branch with your ID documents, and someone there has to check them. And check you.”
“But ... I mean ... I can’t fly out to Nashville. I’ve already missed too many lectures this semester. I just can’t do it! Isn’t there some way around this?”
“I’m afraid not,” Glenn said. “It’s Federal Law. Your choice is to fly out here for a few days or pull out of promoting the tour. I have people who can step in if that’s what you want to do.”
“No. No, I want to do this. To support Carly. I’m not pulling out. Are you sure there isn’t some way around this? Can’t we do it at a London branch of the bank or something?”
“No,” said Ben. “London branches of US banks are separate legal entities and subject to different regulations. Paul, there’s no way around this, I’m afraid. But we can make it easier for you. Wintersmith’s account is with Radcliffe Grant, isn’t it? The private bank?”
I nodded. “It is. Why would that help?”
“Because they are a global private bank that also operates in the United States,” said Ben.
“And they have a branch in Atlanta,” Glenn said.
“You might not realise this, Paul, but you will have a personal private banker in London. A single person who looks after you and Wintersmith. You are their client. They can make an introduction to their colleagues in Atlanta. They may even choose to do that in person.”
“You mean go with me to America?”
“Exactly. They would vouch for your financial position and arrange to transfer the initial deposit from your UK business account. They may even get you a preferential exchange rate.”
I glanced at Lana. Her eyes were wide.
“Paul, please come. I’d love to see you. I could meet you in Atlanta.”
“In fact,” said Glenn, “I could arrange for you both to meet with the tour manager candidates there. And meet with some support act candidates.”
“Support act?” I said.
“Well, yeah, Paul,” Carly said. “I’ll need a support act. It’s my way of giving back.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Giving back?”
“Yeah,” Carly said. “I’ve been the support act before, now it’s my turn to give someone else that chance.”
“The support act is usually someone just starting out,” said Glenn. “Maybe they have just released their debut album, or they have just signed a record deal, or maybe they are looking for a deal. I actually have four very strong candidates.”
“Okay. Understood.”
“Paul, we can arrange it so that you miss the absolute minimum time from your studies,” Glenn said. “I have someone who can get the LLC set up within days. It’ll be ready and waiting for its bank account when you get here this time next week.”
“You can fly out from Heathrow direct to Atlanta straight after your last lecture next Thursday,” Ben said. “An overnight flight, landing early on Friday morning. You meet the bankers on Friday morning, have lunch, and then Carly and Glenn will meet you at your hotel to arrange for you to interview the tour manager candidates that afternoon.”
“You two have already got this planned out, haven’t you?” I said.
“That’s what you and Carly pay us for,” Glenn said. “To solve problems.”
I nodded. “Good point.”
“On Saturday, you can meet the support act candidates,” Ben said. “Have them perform an audition for you, and chat with them, then catch an overnight flight back to London on Saturday evening, arriving back home on Sunday, ready for classes on Monday.”
“You mean ready to sleep all day Monday?” I said. “Either that or run on energy drinks for the day.”
Glenn laughed. “Yeah, that sounds about right. But you can do this, Paul.”
I nodded. Then looked at Lana sitting next to me. Then at the screen.
I took a deep breath. “Okay. But I’m not doing this alone. Marie, you’re definitely coming with me.”
“Me?” she said. “But I ... I...”
“You do have a passport, don’t you?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Good, because I definitely need my Executive Assistant there. I probably need one of my lawyers there, too,” I said. “I’ll leave the two of you to fight over who comes.”
“Ben can go,” Amiee said immediately. “He needs to buy Glenn that drink.”
“If I’m coming out to you, then it looks like it’s going to be bourbon, Glenn.”
“Sounds good to me. Paul, you’ll join us for that, right?”
“We all will.” I turned to Lana. “You have a passport too, right?”
“Me?”
I nodded.
“Well, yes, but ... I’ve ... I’ve never flown before and ... Paul, I can’t affo—”
“I’m paying,” I said. “Obviously. Well, Wintersmith Entertainment is. For all four of us. It’s a business trip, so the business pays.”
“But, I’m not ... I mean...”
“You’re my advisor. I need you there.” I smiled. “To advise me.”
She blinked. “You really want me to come?”
I nodded.
“I’d love your opinion on the tour manager and support act,” Carly said.
Still looking at Lana, I nodded towards the screen. “What she said.”
Lana bit her lip. Then she did that thing she so often did, where she looked into first one of my eyes, then the other. As if she were reading me like a book. Reading my soul.
Then she nodded. “Okay.”
“Last thing from me, I promise, but we need to talk about funding the LLC,” Glenn said.
“I’m told two million pounds,” I said.
Glenn shook his head. “There’s no need to send such a large amount over here. All you will need to deposit into your US account is enough to cover the upfront costs and probably the event-night costs for the first three, maybe four, shows. After that, you should start receiving the revenue from ticket and merchandise sales, which will arrive regularly and cover the costs for the remaining shows.”
“Why do I need to cover three shows?” I said. “Do we not get the ticket money from the first show to cover the second?”
Again, Glenn shook his head. “The ticketing agencies will hold all the money from ticket sales in escrow until about five business days after the show goes ahead. That way, they have it available if they have to issue refunds for some reason. It’s a pain, but it’s standard practice.”
“What about merchandise sales? How long does that take?”
“Just a day or two, but it’s peanuts in comparison to the ticket revenue. We’re going to pitch these tickets between forty-five dollars for right at the back, to maybe as much as a hundred dollars for the front. It’ll probably average out at about sixty-five dollars across the whole tour. By contrast, not everyone will buy merchandise, so your spend per head will be no higher than twenty or thirty dollars.” He grinned. “And you only get a fraction of that, anyway. Most of it is ours.”
I nodded. “Okay, so, how much do I need?”
“Your up-front costs, that’s insurance, deposits and a good marketing budget, will be between three hundred and three fifty.”
“And the show costs?” I said.
He shrugged. “Hard to be accurate, but I’d allow a hundred thousand per show for at least three shows, ideally four. And you’ll need a contingency fund.”
“Does that include Kayla’s fee?” I asked.
“It does.”
“So ... about eight hundred thousand in total. That’s what, half a million pounds or so? Something like that?”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Marie. “Half a million.”
I nodded. Then looked at Lana. And frowned.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“I’m wondering...” I looked at the screen. “Glenn, what’s the contingency likely to be used for?”
“Who knows? That’s why it’s a contingency. It’s for unforeseen costs.”
“The bigger the contingency, the better, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“So ... How about I send the LLC a nice round one million?”
Glenn nodded. “The extra two hundred will certainly be useful. We could use it for better, more prominent marketing, for example.”
I shook my head. “No, not a million dollars. A million pounds.”
Marie gasped. “Paul! That’s a lot of money.”
“It is,” I said. “It’s about one point six million dollars, isn’t it?”
On screen, Glenn blinked several times. “Paul ... We wouldn’t need that kind of money. You give the tour manager a fund like that, and he’ll spend it.”
“Or she’ll spend it,” Carly said, grinning and raising her fist. “Girl power!”
I chuckled.
Glenn shook his head. “Paul, that’s the kind of money that easily gets turned into hotel upgrades, more ‘refreshments,’ or extra crew hours. It’s dangerous.”
“Glenn ... What do you know about my...” I looked at Lana again. “Mission statement? Is that the right term?”
She nodded. “I think that’s the right jargon.”
I looked back at the screen. “What do you know about my mission statement?”
He shrugged and shook his head. “No idea.”
“Do something good,” I said. “Wintersmith’s mission isn’t just to make money, it’s to do something good with that money, something that makes a difference. Makes people’s lives better. For example, some of my revenue from the Alabama Sweetheart deal is going to the music trust here in Westmouth. The one from Carly’s viral video where she sang with the orchestra.”
“Okay,” he said. “I assume there’s a point here somewhere?”
“And money will go to similar projects for young people in Beaverbrook and Northern Alabama, too. My point is, this tour is a Wintersmith project. It should have the same mission statement as Wintersmith. Let’s do something good.” I shifted my eyes to Carly’s box on the screen. “That’s why I love your branding, Carly. And why I’ve had the idea I’ve had for the show.”
“The idea you haven’t told me about?” She smiled sweetly.
“Yes, that one. And since I’m going to see you in person next weekend, I think I’ll save it for then.”
“Is that so I can kiss you when I love it?”
I glanced at Lana. She shrugged. I looked back at the screen. I wanted to tell Carly she could kiss me any time she felt like it, but thought better of it. “What I’m getting at is, let’s do something good in every city the tour visits. Let’s reach out to the youth music groups in those cities and invite them to a rehearsal, soundcheck, or whatever. Give them free show tickets with backstage passes. Let’s try to really make a difference. And with extra money in the bank and, say, ten to twenty percent of that extra money ring-fenced to make that happen, we could make a real difference.”
“Paul,” Glenn said. “You start bringing minors backstage, the liability insurance is going to go through the roof.”
“I’m sure it would.” I shrugged. “But it’ll be worth it.”
“Paul?” Carly said.
“Yeah?”
“I love it. And I love...” She paused. I’m certain the next word would have been ‘you.’ Why did she stop herself? “Let’s make a difference, Paul. You and me. Together. Let’s make a difference.”
I smiled at her. “Yeah. All of us. Together.”
“If there are no more questions,” Glenn said, “then I’ll sign off and leave you, Carly, to chat with your friends.”
“I do have one question,” I said. “How many free tickets to each show do I get as the promoter, and are there any restrictions on what I can do with them?”
Glenn smiled. “Well, technically, Paul, you don’t get any free tickets at all.”
“I don’t? But I thought—”
“Because, as the promoter, you own all the tickets from the moment you book the venue. You then decide how many of those tickets to put on sale. Technically, you don’t have to put any on sale at all. You can keep all of them and have a private show every night.” He chuckled. “Of course, if you did that, you wouldn’t make any money, so I don’t recommend it. But you could. It’s up to you. They are your tickets until the moment they are sold.”
“Seriously?” I said. “I could keep all the tickets to a show and just have a show for our friends and family or something?”
“Absolutely. Look, we’re launching the tour with two nights at The Ryman. So, you could make, say, night one invitation only. Chloë Goodman is a friend of yours, Paul, isn’t she? And a big fan of yours, Carly. So, you could give her a thousand of the two and a half thousand tickets and tell her to give them to her movie star friends.”
He paused.
“That’s not a bad idea, Glenn,” I said. “Maybe not a thousand, maybe five hundred. But we could pack the first few rows with famous faces and get their videos out on social media.”
“That would definitely create a buzz,” Amiee said.
“And the rest of the tickets we could hand out to local dignitaries,” Glenn said.
“Music writers and social media influencers, too,” Ben said. “That sort of thing. Maybe run some contests on local or even national radio.”
“Yeah,” I said. “We call night one, like, I don’t know ... An exclusive preview of the show. Make it a truly special event.”
“I really like this idea, Paul,” Ben said. “That could really work. It’ll cost you, of course, but the publicity it generates would be worth it.”
“Paul, after the last couple of months, Kayla’s profile is really high here in the UK, too,” Amiee said. “You could run a contest on one of the national radio stations and fly the winners out to the preview show, put them up in a nice hotel, and give them some spending money. Do it on one of the commercial stations that charge for competition entry and negotiate a share of that revenue, and it might not even cost you anything. That sort of thing would drive album sales.”
“Carly,” I said. “What do you think? If we did this, we’d be cutting your fans out of the first night?”
“I sort of like it,” she said. “I know it makes sense. But ... Paul, how about we ‘do something good’ and give tickets to local children and women’s charities, too?”
“Women’s charities?”
“Yeah, like women’s shelters. This tour is a celebration of womanhood, right? We Hear You. We Respect You. We Celebrate You. Some of the women in those places ... They deserve a special night. A night where those of us on stage say we hear you and we love you and you are special.”
I nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. Let’s make this happen, Glenn. Night one, special preview. A bunch of Chloë’s Hollywood friends and a whole lot more vulnerable women who deserve to be seen, heard and celebrated.”
Lana put her hand on my arm. I looked at her. She smiled a wide smile and nodded. “Something good,” she said.
“Glenn, do you have anywhere pressing to be?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, I blocked out a couple of hours for this meeting.”
“Good.” I took my phone out of my pocket. “Give me a sec, guys.”
“What are you doing?” Lana asked.
“Trying to see if I can get ... Copy that ... Paste there ... Send.”
Even before I’d finished typing the message asking Chloë if she was free to join our video call, a notification on my laptop told me she was waiting to be admitted. I clicked on the button to let her in.
“Hi, Paul. What’s—Oh, that’s a lot of people. Hang on.” Her image on the screen tilted to the side, then righted itself. “I should have got my tablet or laptop out of my bag. Or get a bigger phone. You all look so small. It looks like you’re having a ‘high-powered’ meeting there, Paul—” She smirked as she used the same teasing term she’d used when I was late for our very first meeting about becoming partners in our student housing venture. “I can see Carly. Hi, Carly. Congratulations again for Sunday. Welcome to the club. That little statue is a lot heavier than it looks, isn’t it? Where have you put it?”
“It really is. And I’m at home, so Mum has put it on the mantel above the fireplace for now. I don’t know if I’m going to leave it here or take it back to Nashville with me. I’m sorry you didn’t win, though.”
Chloë waved a hand dismissively. “I was never going to. Not after being nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. It sort of ... split the vote, if that makes sense. I had people telling me, the whole month I was out here, that they felt they could only vote for me in one category, not both, and didn’t know which one to choose. If I’d only been nominated for one, I might have had a better chance. Still, there’s always next year to get my second statue. Is that your manager there? Glenn, is it? Who else is on the call, Paul?”
“Good to see you too, Chloë,” I said, smirking.
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, good to see you, Paul. Now, introductions?”
“Sure. This is Marie. Give Chloë a wave, Marie.” She did. “She’s my Executive Ass—”
“She’s your Cassie,” Chloë said.
“Exactly,” I said.
“Who’s Cassie?” Marie asked, frowning.
“Chloë’s Assistant,” I said. “Chloë would be, and I quote, ‘lost without her.’”
“Oh,” Marie said. “Okay.”
“And, just to be clear, I’d be lost without you,” I said, driving the point home.
Marie blushed and looked down at her desk.
“Then we’ve got Ben and Amiee,” I said. They both waved. “They are my media law—Actually, Media Advisors as much as they are lawyers. They are both really sharp, totally on the ball and full of great ideas.”
“Paul, as I said to Glenn, the cheque’s in the post.”
“And as Glenn said to you, I’m not just being nice.”
Ben nodded.
“And who’s that next to you?” Chloë said.
“This is Lana Car—”
“The famous Lana? Nice to meet you, Lana.”
“Famous?” Lana said.
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