IN PROFILE
ONLY HELIX Following the announcement of the company’s new touring visa services, OH Visas, Only Helix tells TPi’s Stew Hume about its new artist management division and visa arm, launched with specific expertise for the live music and entertainment industries.
It’s become a recurring trend in our industry for companies to use this forced hiatus in live events as a chance to look into new markets and how they might be able to better serve the music industry when it is back to full health. Take Only Helix for example. Founded in 2018 by Steven Down and Tom Nicol, the duo’s joint business began after they saw a space in the market to aid artist managers by securing the right people with the right skills for their acts’ live productions, as well as taking care of advancing and touring budgets. Since then, the pair have developed a reputation for creating seamless live shows and tours as OH Production for the likes of Years and Years, Fontaines D.C. and Bombay Bicycle Club to a name a few, and recently expanded to offer their own brand of artist career guidance, OH Management, as well as new specialist visa services in OH Visas. Aimed at taking the headache out of time-consuming travel admin by offering comprehensive and efficient solutions for certified travel, and with data security at the forefront of its offering, OH Visas handles the entire visa process from start to finish, covering applications, appointments and
embassy visits. Learning from previous challenges faced as a result of the intricacies found within the touring industry , OH Visas hopes to streamline the end-to-end process down to one universal form. As part of this service, passport and ATA carnet advice and support will also be included. Headed up by seasoned travel pro Ben Young, who has extensive visa agency experience and brings a wealth of experience to the role, OH Visas is led by proven industry expertise. “Both Tom and Steven had been clients of my previous company and we already had a great working relationship,” began Young. “This forced hiatus for the music industry has really given us the time to dig into the processes involved in facilitating travel for artists. Up until now, a lot of the admin involved in obtaining information needed for visas has been done by ‘any means necessary’, with personal information being exchanged via WhatsApp chats or long email chains.” Young compared this rather haphazard method to other industries, where dealing with personal data is much more streamlined and organised, not to mention more secure. “The premise of this branch of Only Helix 44
