I have a friend who's a musician, that's been coming to the US to tour a month a year for a decade. This last time his visa got stuck for a full year and even his immigration lawyer couldn't figure out who was holding it up. Instead they applied for the EB-'Eistein visa' which was issued in only 3 weeks so that he could tour. It did take a call from said lawyer reminding them that a US corporation would be losing money if it wasn't done on time.

Still, he was shocked shocked by a quick EB as a weekend strummer with a few regular US gigs. Lawyer cost $6k.