So what happens in
social reality is that open spots end
up dragging other open spots to bringer shows (as all their newly
formed relationships are with other opens) and pretending that they're
not acts but required audience members. The promoter then pockets
the £13. The acts have also paid to travel to the
gig. This is silly, as if they'd pooled their resources they
could have stuck it all into petrol money and gone and done an out of
town gig, where they would be rebooked if they did well. Out of
town promoters are more than happy to give open spots petrol money in
order to fill their stage time. It is only London promoters who
have socially isolated themselves by banning anyone who disagrees with
them who think we really are all that stupid!
While it's true that friends of new acts will always be
part of the revenue of an open mike night, forcing people to bring mates or
coercing them is trying to lean on them to do the work of the promoter
for themselves. Most of the time I have found that a percentage of new
acts bring mates anyway so why force them to do so? There is only
one reason - to increase turnover
for the promoter's cash ISA. Whether the public or acts enjoy
themselves is of no consequence.
This is usually defended with
Its
a very small price to pay when
you think about the benefits to you.
The important words here are price to pay.
It is an open admission that acts are paying for stage time.
And
that old classic
If he has found a
way to keep both parts of his club going, it has
got to be good for the business as a whole from
The key phrase here is both parts
- it is an admission that the promoter
has
to keep the new acts and established acts separated, in order to
institute his policy of effectively charging the new acts.
If
you agree to do a Bringer show, book
it and bring no one and let the promoter stew in his own
impotence. No matter how many IMPORTANT
famous people the promoter photographs himself with or boasts about
knowing if he really was powerful he
wouldn't need YOU to bring
an
audience. Respectable clubs don't lean on new acts to
bring in punters. No one has the right to ask you to do unpaid manual
labour.
Other hilarious defences for
making acts pay to play include:
You are driven by
jealousy
No, I'm not.
It is just a few
comics who are annoyed by it.
When HUGE numbers
of acts professional and new annoyed by this ! I am not running a
vendetta but you can check this out by searching the Chortle News
archive and forums.
It means we will
have a sure crowd
So does kidnap
Without a venue there can be no gig.
While in New York real estate prices are astronomic
meaning club owners there can bully acts in this way decimating their
own industry, there are over 55,000 pubs alone just in London many of
which have function rooms and that doesn't even include arts centers
and proper entertainment venues. Just how stupid do you think we
are, Mr Bigness?
All acts bring
friends with them when they start out...
No, we didn't. We really really didn't.
But my scam is a
new way of doing things...?
No, it's as old as the hills - see above
EVERYONE PAYS NO
EXCEPTIONS
That is the only way a night like this is possible
I am sending a coded message to the acts that I expect them to pay to
play while attempting to conceal the fact they are being charged to
perform from the paying public. Actually, this is a black
lie - I dont really need to charge at all I'm just very ruthless and
very greedy.
The combination of our website, our huge mailing list, and our facebook
site means that your name gets seen by approx 13.000 people in any one
week . That includes media folk watching out for the stars of the
future.
Anyone can set up a website, mailing list and facebook
site - Mr Bigness didn't invent the internet. Exploitative practices
are often defended with the phrase "media folk watching out for the
stars of the future". Promoters and agents go to gigs
anyway. Yes, Avalon actually do send people out to open mike
nights to spot and trawl for new talent - good on them! I know
this because I've sold them tickets.
The venue makes a
bit on drinks which I need to happen in order to stay there.
Some new act nights have been running for over a decade
if no one does come …erm … what’s the point? Actually
many people have asked us that but we're still there. Seriously though
despite some very slack periods indeed in the past we've never lost the
room and ...if no one ever does come ... You need to think about why
your gig doesn’t work? Besides which being thrown out of a venue isn't
the end of the world. If todays established promoters had let little
things like being thrown out by the landlord stand in their way... The
object of promotion is to run an event people want to come back to not to fill pub
rooms by bullying. If you have a respected name people will come back
even if you move venue.
It helps towards
my costs of putting on the night.
I should
point out that I spend many hours during the week pushing the event.
No one's denying Mr Big works very hard but Mr Big is
working for Mr Big. The acts are working for Big by definition if he's
charging the public to see them. To ask the acts to bring their own
paying audience is short-circuiting the process of promotion and
perverting the promoter/act relationship
You get to perform
at an excellent
influential leading club
It was until you ran a scam
and damaged your reputation
for integrity within the "industry".
This has worked as
a really good formula for the past two and a half years...?
No, it has not. Your name is
mud all the
way from Portsmouth to Manchester. This is why you are still doing open
mike nights after ages and ages on the circuit.
I also noticed
that performers who had their friends in the audience performed to a
generally higher standard
Any promoter who links stage time to returned favours in this way is
putting themselves under the suspician that they take
bribes. It is also a
coded way of saying the promoter's biggest interest in new acts is
turnover.
While this may be true, saying it explicitly is slightly tactless
People pay to do the
Fringe - this is no different?
Yes, it
is. People who take shows to the Fringe are investing their
labour and money directly in their own career. People who work for
nothing for a promoter are simply exploited. Also the Fringe has had
problems with this kind of thing too. Eventually when the costs of
performing had been eaten away by so many parasites that only the rich
could afford to go one man, Peter Buckley-Hill, stood up and invented...
Free Fringe
... everyone was much happier!
These people are doing it for a hobby, so why shouldn't
they pay for it?
Many people do comedy for a hobby,
semi-professionally or professionally. However, even hobbyists and part
timers do gigs in order to get gigs. An open spot is meant to be a job
interview for a paid spot. Or a chance to test new material in a
situation of less pressure as the gig is unpaid. The comic is actually
doing the promoter a favour by turning up and filling stage time - not
the other way round. If someone is doing a gig-they-paid-to-do to
get an unpaid gig then firstly they are bribing the promoter which is
unethical and secondly the promoter is trying to get them to work for less
than nothing or do the labour of promoting for them in order to
turn a
profit. And if the public are paying to see the acts and the acts are
paying to be seen this is a Pay-to-Play scam.
Also, if an open spot is a job interview then pay-to-play gigs are by definition
employment scams and employment scams are actually a form of advance fee fraud.
The
late Dr Pedler would like to thank http://www.nextwebsecurity.com
for legal permission to blantantly plagerise their flowchart
So long as you are prepared to pay
someone upfront to find you work they
have
no incentive to actually find you any or create more employment.
So it's always ultimately futile to pay someone for a gig.
Unlike general cons or sharp business practices that prey on people
with disposable income employment
scams are particularly obnoxious because they prey on the most
vulnerable people in society - job seekers.
If I want to pay
to play why is that wrong?
It is bribery. An open spot is meant to be a form of job
interview. If you have to repeatedly pay for job interviews that is a
type of employment scam and there is legislation against such scams
even if the various pay-to-play gigs fall between the cracks. No
professional comedian will knowingly perform at a Pay-to-Play gig.
There will therefore be no progression. Even if a proper comedian is
willing to play a Pay-to-Play night the
promoter will not want them in their room for fear they will be
disgusted at how the other acts are treated.
Being a comedian isn't just about being funny. It
is also a sales job. The job of the comedian is to be funny and to sell the fact he/she is funny to
promoters. Salesmen who sell complex manpower projects to
large
organisations have long used symoblic logic to try to map who
has influence and authority within an organisation in order to maximise
their chance of a sale. Whether an organisation/promoter has
1,7 or 1000 individuals working for them, all organisations have one
thing in common - the number of
people with
the infuence and authority to spend
money is usually limited to one or two at the most. These
people are often hard to reach so
the salesman tries to impress people of moderate influence and
authority in order to find someone who has sufficient social influence
with the actually powerful to get him work, contracts (or in our case a
gig).
By
making subjective judgements on influence
(likelihood to
recommend
an act to a promoter) and authority (likelihood to book and pay an act)
of every act/person at any particular type of gig
(this doesn't count
the audience that would take forever) Niccolò di Bernardo
dei Machiavelli has produced the above influence vs authority
bubble chart of power at pro, amateur, open mike and pay-to-play
gigs. While the positioning of
each individual bubble may be
debatable the size of the bubble (which reflects the number of
individuals at each power level) is
not...
As the animation shows, people
who pay-to-play instead of working for free or for nothing
actually have negative authority
and negative influence. Basically they are
giving money
to someone who's ambition it is to keep them at the bottom of the
comedy
ladder for as long as possible. The more promoting work they do
for for free the more power the scam promoter gets.
If you really want stage time that badly, start your own
club and book the acts. Many well respected acts right up to top pros
will play the smaller clubs for realistically small fees as long as
they dont feel they're being taken for a ride. You can find
contact details of acts through the Mirth Control Diary Room, by
gigging and by going out to live comedy gigs and blagging them.
Dont be shy to ask an act to gig for you - they can only say "No" or
"How much?" or "Ask my agent" You find a pub with spare room and
politely ask the landlord if you can use it for a gig ... if he says no
you keep looking. If you dont feel confident enough to run a club on
your own find some mates to help you. It does take a fair amount of
work but if there are lots of you involved you dont have to be there
EVERY week. Alternatively go out of town. There are many many
clubs out there and if you do well they will pay you and ask you
back. That is an investment in your future - rather than a scam
promoter's cash ISA
It's a free market
It's not an unregulated free market and you can't behave
as though
employment law didn't exist or abuse the goodwill of acts and the
general public forever.
As explained above, as well as being employment scams,
pay to play scams are also simple forms of old fahsioned bribery and
corruption. For all their talk of "free markets" pay-to-play
promoters are actually simply engaged in old fashioned anti-competative
practices that create a very unfavourable business environment by
encouraging unfair advantage.
Bribery
and corruption impacts upon the poor and vulnerable people, it
undermines public services and has an economic impact, increasing the costs of doing business
(see below) whether the corruption is overseas or open mike.
But these are just
amateurs?
All professional acts started out as open spots at some time and
promoters who value the labour of open spots enough to put them on for
free are not happy about "promoters" trying to undercut them by using
opens as a source of free money/labour particularly so when they are
acts themselves expecting to be given free stage time at other clubs.
Furthermore it is our experience that when they run out of sub-minimum
wage labour some of these "promoters" come round free-to-play clubs
trying to find more people to force to pay to play against their will
and when they are confronted and ask to leave turn very nasty.
If one
club starts in effect charging people to perform then lots of other
people within the industry will have to start charging each other to
perform and the costs of becoming a comedian will rise... this
is the usual effect of bribery and corruption increasing the cost of
doing business (see above).
Then the new generation of comedians will the be decided
by how much wealth they have rather than how funny they are and poorer
people will be excluded from the comedy circuit meaning the development
of talent will suffer. People who support paying for stage time are
really dividing society and decimating the industry as famously
happened to the New York comedy scene. Everyone does unpaid gigs
somewhere and everyone needs a promoter to take a risk on them at the
start of their career. Running open mike gigs is relatively inexpensive
whereas comics have large overheads - travel, festival shows etc
...we travel all over the country and the world ... making people pay
extra on top of that will exclude more and more people from trying.
A new act night is
hard to sell to the public
Orange Shaped and the Laughing Goose and Playfulness
Comedy Clubs and New Acts at the Zebra and many other promoters have
been selling New Acts to the public for over a decade. New acts
are more than willing to gig for nothing. If you cant make money
out of people prepared to work for free then you're just really really
really bad at business.
If you
put on an open night sometimes you get Daniel Kitson and sometimes you
get a mentally disturbed young neo-nazi woman talking for five
punchline free minutes about gas chambers while killing the evening
stone dead but most of the time you just find someone who’s okay.
Also a lot of new acts are uncommitted and just dont
show! which makes the waiting lists for a spot for those genuinely
interested even longer. The upside of booking new acts is that you get
their contact details before anyone else and can circumvent agents and
middle men. I didn’t tell you that though.
Wonderful
work! Every open spot in London should buy you a pint!
This is supposed to be a campaign against bribery -
even if I do take bribes I'm not going to admit it openly, am I?
Bribery around the world is estimated at about $1 trillion
(£494bn)....
I give up - sell your soul ...I'll have a stout please
It's only a rival
promoter and a few new acts who object to it.
You can read miles of objections by
acts and promoters at all levels of the circuit on the Chortle Forums.
LINK
LINK
People who run bringers,
unpaid-flyer
and
pay-to-play gigs make a big song and dance about
their important friends in the business in order to intimidate the
young, new and vulnerable into bowing down before them. But
remember while all acts should respect the booker you are not his
slave. He/she is only one booker.
Most
comedians are happy with the existing system to gig for nothing or
relatively nothing if they're free and want the stage time.
They do not want pay to play
however carefully cloaked.
So if you know
of a promoter using opens as free labour do something about it!
And dont buy
tickets directly from opens.
Go support new
acts but make sure they're not being leaned on to sell you tickets.
Or just sit back
while we're all dehumanised...
