Keeping Yourself Above Water: Entertainers Avoiding Bankruptcy

It is hard to talk about this topic because it is a rather personal one that combines elements of professionalism and my personal life.

There are a few things that I am sure of every year; that I will hear about fushigi and that I will hear about another entertainer who has lost everything and is going bankrupt/belly up.  It is also a position that I have found myself in as well.

There was a period of time that I was unable to find work; every interview carried with it the question about the fact that I was a part time entertainer.  In looking back I lost several job opportunities because potential employers thought that hiring a part time entertainer was a liability. 

During that time I only was able to get through it by the skin of my teeth and the help of loved ones and I learned a few things.   Entertainment professional need to learn  financial planning and how/when to reinvest in the show.

#1 Separate the hobby from the job.  

Of the props and tools that I own; I only use half of them regularly.  I use another quarter of those props semi-infrequently.  This leaves about 15-25% of my collection as a wasted collection.  What I learned from my experiences is that I need to treat my purchases as investments rather than impulse purchases for my hobby.  This will save you a lot of wasted money down the line. 

Playing with magic is fine, but when your living is based on the amount of money you spend on it treating it a bit differently goes a long way.  It is very easy to delude yourself into justifying a bad purchase in the name of a business expense.

#2 Know What You Need

Plan your life; a lot of the performers I know live from double incomes with a spouse or significant other and can plan around the lean times.  Other performers live out of country during their dry season.

The basics are this; we live on an indeterminate amount of money where we have amazing months and terrible months.  We need to be able to save money during the amazing months so we can get through the terrible months.

Most events who book entertainers such as ren faires/ convention circuits/ etc normally plan their entertainment around six months prior to the date in question.  When I ran the numbers I realized that I needed enough money to make it through six months in order to have enough time to start booking large scale gigs and make it onto the convention circuit/ ren faire circuit.

More importantly you need to have the connections required to do so.

#3 Do not live on the well wishes of others.

I want to ask a question; What is holding you in place?  What is keeping you afloat?

I have a full time job that pays my bills,  I have a legal agreement with a landlord that keeps me in my home,  I have a legal agreement that provides me with a vehicle, and I have the ability to maintain it and keep on the road.  My ability to be a performer and live life is not at the kindness or courtesy of someone else.  Just think about it.

Why Facebook Advertising Won't Help You As An Entertainer

"We are beggars begging from beggars"

As a rule of thumb I almost never post my upcoming shows to my fellow performers or to any groups that are populated by other performers.  But this seems to be the current model of entertainment in the city that I live in; Philadelphia:

" That if I come and support your particular brand of art then eventually 

you will give me a chance at using my particular brand of art in your show

and/or at your venue"

In the movie "History of the World: Part 1" The scene in which the peasants decided to revolt was highlighted by the line that they were beggars begging from beggars to show how badly that they actually had it.  In the same way if any of our promotional material or our advertising is trained at fellow performers; then there is in no way any real expectation of being able to get off the ground.

To use a mathematical model, a group of performers performing for other performers only works if all goods, services, and needs are met by that particular group. ((In other words; if they are self-sustaining)).  But we buy our food at Whole Foods and shop for our clothing at the mall/thrift stores.  We pay our land lord and our various bills.  It is therefor impossible to be self sustaining as a group.  

This means that this particular model of advertising and creating shows is ultimately not self-sustaining and any advertisement for our shows is and should be aimed at the mainstream.  When we sell ourselves on facebook we do so by what are commonality related posts in the same way that Amazon offers you suggestions on what to buy based on previous purchases.  So if I go to a lot of pagan web pages and buy a lot of athames/sage then it makes senses to advertise a new pagan website/ ren faire/ etc because I will post about a lot of things found at these places.

But the people posting flow art/circus arts, googling the word "juggling club", and making purchases of clown make up on amazon in sufficient qualities to flag for facebook advertising are those individuals who are already doing the same thing we are doing.  Therefor paying for advertisement or making a point of advertising solely to other performers only serves to continue this basic and not make any actually head way.  It would better to spend your money on a search service to make your website pop out or your youtube video so that is a "suggested" video.

Three BIG Tips For New Entertainers

Over the last few months I wanted to write a small set of "things" to keep in mind as you begin work as an entertainer.  I had some difficulty coming up with what I felt were "BIG" things that would be universally true as an entertainer....

But I feel these three are important and that they stand as something that all people who work in entertainment should keep in mind as they develop their acts.

1-Know what you are selling.
What do you sell?  I mean we all sell entertainment;  so let me be more specific what is the premise that your selling and what is actually entertaining the audience.  If you are selling sensuality and teasing those who find you gorgeous then you might be practicing burlesque...........

.....or you are a female magician (don't knock it; it probably gets her work).

When you create acts you are selling something; that something should make sense to the audience in regards to what your selling.   Some of Criss Angel's work is beautiful; sometimes watching him act like a demon possessed to get a card through a window is hysterical.

One of my favorite acts was watching two eyeliner wearing goth boys performing pressure at a practice session..  I found it hard not to laugh watching two very serious men in very gothic attire give the same expression that they would give for swallowing a sword or needle to squeezing a balloon shut.
And while we are on the topic.......
What you know your selling and what you think your selling should always be the same thing.  If your selling "art" and your audience is watching "sexy boylesque" then the moment your art has nothing to do with your body your show is done.
This also means know the worth of what you are selling.  Or you could always be the next free contestant on the television who isn't getting paid jack. If you sell under price,  then that sends a message to the person booking you that they should be able to get everyone under that price.  But I already covered that in a previous article..

2-Do not over step your reach.

When you overstep your reach in sports you whiff on a fast ball or fall on your face.  When you whiff in fire breathing......

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Caught-on-Cam-Fire-Breather-Catches-Fire-During-Tattoo-Convention--292032161.html
.....you get a bottle rocket.  There has been plenty of conversation on what went wrong in this video so I don't feel it necessary to comment.  Needless to say that there was a serious lack of safety and training.
When a juggler drops, he loses the crowd.  When a magician drops......

......that effect is ruined for the audience (as well as other effects that have similar methods) and other magicians have to start taking the effect out of circulation.  When a fire performer fails and hurts themselves or others; fire performers everywhere get nailed by the cost of what one person did.
There is a young man I know and performed against in a competition who decided to do glass walking as a part of the act.  He learned it from Brian Brushwood's video series on YouTube a week prior to this show.

He didn't size his tarp down correctly and also used about 2 trash bags of confetti.   In his haste to clean it up he managed to spray the entire front row with pieces of glass from his act.  Thankfully the entire front row was a group of burlesquers who knew the act and so weren't hurt.
You need to spend a lot of time training, and practicing your routines.  If you don't practice these routines and methods you end up creating accidents and mistakes that will not only end up costing you but also end up costing other performers.  The secret to these effects and stunts isn't in knowing how they are done(the gimmick) but in the time to develop the safety and skill necessary to pull them off without making such mistakes that can be corrected with proper training and safety.

3-Don't Base Your Act On The Culture
Every discipline in the world has a culture;  and with the culture comes expectations....for instance magic is what is generally referred to as an old man's club.  The first time I attended a IBM meeting 75% of the room was old, male, and white.  The only woman in the room where catering the food or sitting with their husbands like good ol' wives. Cause you know it isn't like magicians are sexist or anything right.

Every culture carries with a set of expectations and also a set of criteria for what makes a good show.  But here is a sad truth;  the culture doesn't pay you.  The normal audience who want their kids to have a good birthday,  the men in the front row staring at you like a piece of eye candy,  the corporate client who wants their audience to have a feel good vibe.  These are the people who pay you;  the jugglers, the magicians, the entertainers....

These are the people you learn from and network with.
I know maybe 50 entertainers of different calibers and skill level.  Only two of those individuals have ever thrown me a financial bone (meaning a paid gig).  Half of them have asked me gigs and half of them have asked for favors.  I pass what I can.
A running joke is as follows-
Two magicians are sitting down at a club one night and talking shop.  One of them is a world famous entertainer who has been booked repeatedly for cruise liners, amusement parks and corporate events.  The other one looks at him and mentions that he does birthday parties.  To which the world famous entertainer says "who is booking those".?

Not to scream the point:
EVERY PERSON WHO ENTERTAINS HAS TO LOOK OUT FOR THEMSELVES FIRST

The only way to make money from other performers is as a teacher or as a manufacturer/booking agent.

You can perform for them; but they will never pay and for as much as they will judge you on showmanship.  They will also judge you on technicality and originality of movements....in fact juggling for jugglers or doing magic for magicians can be compared to the new scoring system for figure skating....

http://www.howcast.com/videos/317576-how-to-understand-the-olympic-figure-skating-scoring-system/ 
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0213/p11s01-alsp.html

If you limit yourself to only what you think the culture of juggling will accept or the magicians or burlesquers will accept and give you...then you are only hampering your capacity as an entertainer.

 At the end of the day the greatest determination of skill is how successful you are which means playing all sides.

The Why and Why Nots of Free Performances (for those just starting out)

Dealing with the freebies

If you are around artists, have a friend who is a DJ, or entertainers of any sort than at some point on Facebook you have seen one of these rants: 

Yes, the "You should not work for free" rant: which honestly has a lot of valid points.  But there are some valid reasons for doing free shows and there are also a lot of giant warning signs that you should bear in mind.  Some of the best shows that I have ever done have been free shows and some of the worst shows that I have ever done have been free shows.  So here is a few thoughts on the topic of doing free performances.  There are some valid points and some alarm bells.  Keep in mind that many of these are for new entertainers.

#1 Payment doesn't always mean money.

    This summer a rather large sum of cash will literally be flying out of my account for no other reason than to have someone with decent equipment follow me around for a day and taking video of me performing a number of act's through out the city of Philadelphia for the purposes of creating a promotional advertisement for my show to ship to various ren faires and prospective agents.  There are a large number of things that go into being a performer and entertainer that can be difficult to do.  Website design, photography, business card design, video editing.  All of these can make or break you on getting working gigs as well.  And all of these can cost a fortune as well. 
    A decent camera rig can easily cost well over a thousand, it takes a while to develop the necessary skill and knowledge to create an effective and interactive website for prospective client, and it takes a very good eye to take quality video  So whenever I get a chance to get a show where these things are included I always do so and try to include access to raw footage as a feature of the contract.  But if someone want's to do a payment-in trade; then even though that's not cash it can easily be worth it.  Especially since so many of artists are only as good as our word.  I have a lost a few contacts because someone broke their word to me and left me hanging on the book (which in turn caused me to break off arrangements; which means i am persona non-Grata in a few places).  I have also bartered for a few things on the notion of a "I owe you a favor".
    Every year I try to make sure I perform at juggling festivals because while I don't get paid for it (I am not what you would ever call a head liner juggler) the festivals almost always make sure that there show gets a video graphed and the ability to do that is honestly worth it's wait in gold (Because getting video of you on a stage to a really happy audience is always good for a promotional clip).  Also getting the chance to work a stage show without worrying about the crowd getting angry or upset(or a venue owner getting angry or upset) is also a needed experience.
    It takes time to develop a stage show and unlike comedy; there is no such thing as a juggling open mike.  It either works or it doesn't; so festivals are an amazing place to go and perform a stage show (which allows you to do stuff you can't do on a street during a busking show) to allow you to work out the bugs.  And this is worth it's weight on gold-pressed latinum (and yes I am a total star trek geek)

#2 What actually constitutes exposure

    The number one line that I am exposed to when it comes to the freebies is that what I will be doing will constitute exposure.  Exposure is sort the mythic monster that performers live and deal with on a constant basis....and I hate it.....and need it.  But exposure needs to be defined.

~Exposure is any instance or event that will put you in front of people that will either be intersted in furthering your work, promoting you, or hiring you.

Are the people whom you are interacting with or performing for actually in a position where they would be interested or are capable of hiring you? 
    -I enjoy performing for people who are appreciative but like everyone else I do need the capacity to live and so while bringing the art's to the groups that may not necessarily get it is a wonderful gift.  It would turn me into the starving artist.

Are you showcasing your brand (or the promoters)??
    -Promoters will often promise to people that entertaining or performing at their event will result in them being exposed; however without your brand being recognized as something separate from the event planner/promoter all you are showing is the promoters brand.  Part of this is you having the necessary tools and equipment to showcase a brand (Business Cards, Promo Packets, a sign for the show on the stage).  Part of this also means the kind of promoter that you are working with and what they are willing to accept.

Is the "exposure" something that will go beyond the event?
    -If everyone see's you but nobody actually remembers your name.  Than I would never call that exposure, I mean yeah you exposed your art form.  But you yourself was not given exposure.  No one actually remembers you after the event or outside of the event.  Exposure that exists outside of the venue in the form of television recordings, YouTube/FaceBook videos, and news articles will carry you far beyond the event itself.  Because people will see that article and it will "frame" you in a very specific way that highlights what it is that you do and why you actually do it.  And press is great advertisement if it allows people to find you.

If none of these things are actually happening then your are not being paid in exposure, your doing something else.

#3 The ability to try out new material

Comedians have the luck of having so many open mike nights venue were they can go ahead and try out material that they have created for a mixed crowd of lay people and fellow comedians.  For those who have incorporated circus and illusion into their act's this is a bigger challenge.  I use free shows as a way of trying out new routines where I don't know if they will or will not go well.  That way if it is not a five star then there is no reason that the person who brought you on will be terribly upset because your sacrificing your time and money towards a free show.  These shows are necessary while you are developing your act.

#4 What are they really getting out of you?

This is a question for the venue and for the performer.  A while back an open letter to Oprah from a hoop artist went viral.  She was asked by one of the richest companies in the world to do a show for them "for the exposure" on a side stage because a big-wig wanted to feature local entertainment.  The question that I always ask myself for a freebie is "what" is the promoter/person who asked me to be there is getting.  I am a softy so when it is a performance for a a real non-charity to help those who would otherwise not get such things I am far more willing to do so.

I have issues when I run into a promoter who is essentially getting a discount, they want all of the benefits of having entertainment but they want to keep more money in the black (or they have a bad business plan that doesn't take into account entertainment).  This might be phrased in terms of competitions/contests, "exposure" (blech), or future "gigs".  But if at the end of the day it is simply a matter of wanting more black ink for themselves then this is a promoter who is using you in order to do better for themselves (regardless of the poor planning on their part)

Last summer I did a church project for an inner city gospel church.  The music was wonderful,  but the parents abandoned their children who out of being bored and abandoned simply came over to me and then proceeded to inspect, grab, touch every single article or tool I had. This was to the point that a parent had to be asked to come over and grab two children who decided they were going to sword fight with juggling swords, sadly no pirate "R's" were exchanged and no broken noses/split skin.  I wasn't asked to be an entertainer for the event.....what I was asked to do was to be a babysitter and I am not doing that for free.  Though I still find it funny that there was a crowd of full of people praising Jesus while their children were 50 feet away and raising hell.

Your "First Routine"

I want to talk about, what is for me, the hardest part of the actual show.  It is not creating novel routines ,dealing with the venue, or handling hecklers; those are easy in comparison to the first “routine” that you do during a show.  I normally don’t have the benefit of either having someone who warms up the audience for me or the benefit of having enough of a reputation that people already know who I am before I even start the show.  So I have to “earn” my audience’s attention.

The traditional tactic of entertainment, and I hear this a lot from musicians, is that your first bit of material should be your second best routine.  But my response to this is now; “best at what”?   The act of performing variety entertainment, especially anything that smacks of illusion or danger,  can very easily take on an “adversarial” tone to many audience members.  They might think everything I am doing is fake or that you shouldn’t play with fire. 

In circus arts, the performers refer to those scripted moments of a show that are designed to elicit applause and cheers as “applause points”.  In illusion I have heard these moments as being referred to as “moments of amazement”.  But neither of these are really guaranteed to make the audience want you to succeed or support your successes during your show.    So your second best “moment of amazement” might only service to reinforce an adversarial tone or distant tone to those audience members.

What I focus on in this first routine is not my moment of amazement but my “moment of connection” to my audience.  I choose something that not only will make my audience laugh, applaud, or cheer but will more importantly connect “me” to them in some way.  I will sacrifice sheer awesomeness of a routine for a different one that helps create or give this “feeling” or “notion” of being connected to an audience.   This serves a number of purposes for me

1. -      It relaxes me.  The moment that I feel a crowd is supportive of what I am doing any of the pre-show stress I feel usually goes out the window.
2. -      I have a buffer zone.  I am a juggler on top of everything else; this means that I do occasionally screw up a trick.  If the crowd is supportive of me they are more likely to actively want me to succeed.  If a crowd is adversarial the act of dropping means that I lose a lot of the interest that I had built up because they were interested in seeing the “tricks” rather than the performance.
3. -      It is easier to deal with hecklers, if a crowd is more interested in me than I am doing with my hands then the crowd will be a lot less supportive of hecklers if they should pop up.
4. -      It sets the tone for the rest of the show.  Creating that moment forces me to “choose” what kind of show that I am going to do so that I don’t drift off center doing the show..
5. -      I am longer the guy “showing” off.  I am the entertainer.

What these moments consist of change depending on the individual and the type of entertainment.  I found  that making light of some of the “paradoxes” of being a juggler and an illusionist was what worked for me in this way for some types of shows that I did.  For other types of shows I have discovered other “methods” that accomplished the same thing.

Some Food For Thought

Why Entertainers Can Be So Expensive Part II: Revenge of your questions.

I received a lot of feedback over the last week about my article on “Why Entertainers Can be So Expensive” and there are two responses I got that I really wanted to respond to.

The first question relates to the concept of “Star Power”; or the capacity (to quote the original source) to put butts in seats.  The notion that a performer’s worth is really only in his capacity to put butts in seats.

The second question relates to pricing and “special” deals”.  It’s a question of interacting with venue owners, individuals who want to hire your services, etc.

#1 Star Power

Star Power is the capacity for performers to put butts in seats.  It’s the difference between saying the name Mr. Massado and the name Penn Jillette or if showed you a picture of the chainsaw juggler from the Geico add or Anthony Gatto.  If you talk to someone in the industry and say both names chances are both will be recognized.  But chances are your doctor has never heard of the man who put Linking Rings back into the public eye or the most technical juggler of our generation.

Star Power works really well when the only reason you are going to the event is to see that person.  I would have ticked if John Water’s Christmas special had some other guy up there for 45 minutes of the hour long show.  Adam Sandler made a movie a few years ago about Star Power called Funny People that introduced a really strange idea.  That if your popular enough for being funny than everyone assumes that what you say is funny even if it really isn’t.  It’s sort of the Emperors New Clothes but in reverse.  Everyone thinks the clothes are there but the Emperor knows there not.

Star Power isn’t necessarily related to the entertainers actual capacity to entertain (though most of the time it is; google Criss Angel and stooges for more information and internet arguments).  Promoters often use Star Power in order to spread the word about an event and bring people in the door.  But there is an exception to this.

festivalprose.com/playing-by-the-numbers-part-1-patron-vendor.html

The link is to a blog on venders and ren faires about making actual money at ren faires and discusses techniques to deal with the various problems that come up.  But the nitty gritty is this; ren faires don’t actually make enough money from the door sales.  They make their money from vendors paying fees in order to set up shop and also attempt to make money.  The longer a patron is at a fair; the more likely they are to purchase something.  

The purpose of an entertainer at a ren faire is to give the patrons something to do in between shopping trips.  Normally this has nothing to do with that entertainers “star power” and everything to do with their capacity to entertain.  Occasionally, a ren faire will bring in a special guest star on a weekend to take advantage of “Star Power” but usually that means one “thirty minute- hour set” with another 5-6 hours of time that others have to cover.

Different businesses cover different models.  A good entertainer does not need to have “star” power in order to justify his cost.  But he does need to know his market and what his market wants.  I deal primarily with what I refer to as “Normals”.  These are just average run of the mill folks who want to hire an entertainer for something.  I also occasionally work out of ren faires, steam punk cons, and some of the associated groups with those.  They have a pre-existing reputation and name that I can trade in in order to bring people to my show (though there is another article about dealing with rennies, steam punkers, and associated jaded audiences versus normal people).

The issue frequently is that the justification for some of these events (in my experience ren faires tend to be really fair but fairy fests and steam punk; not so much) for paying me is “How many people can you bring us”.  The truth is that this motto is every where.  If you don’t believe just think about how many facebook event invites you have had from people trying to bring you in because they are expected to bring people in.

So my response is this,  what is your business model and how do you plan on bringing money in.  If your model is “ticket sales”, then paying someone more who can bring in 500 guests is more important than paying someone who can bring in 50 guests.  But if your model is, say the ren faire model,  than the quality and length of entertainment become far more important than just the pizzazz factor (at least in the current steam punk climate) of seeing someone you love for thirty minutes.

#2 How Much Does Your Show Cost.

I was asked after writing the previous article, how much I generally charge for my show (which is in many ways a giant social foopah and therefore you should not ask if you are in competing markets so I will not answer again).  I rarely actually tell my clients how much I charge.  I have in the back my of my head, an idea of how much cash I need to earn before and after taxes. I normally never list this number unless I am explicitly asked.  Normally I prefer to be given an offer and if it’s fair and reasonable I will take it (or counter offer).

This idea in my head is pretty much I feel that I am worth, what the customer is capable of paying, and what I would have to do.  I translate it into a question of how much time I would spend on this project and therefore think of it as an hourly rate.  I don’t normally tell clients that it is an hourly rate unless of course it’s something where I am being left to my own devices for an hour.

Negotiating prices and follow up shows is sort of a like a magic trick where you don’t actually tell your audience what you're going to do until the very end.  This gives you more out’s, more options, and more possibilities. If there is a reason they might bring me back or more work that might come out of it and I feel the need to play the "price reduction card" then I can play it. But if there is no need and I do so anyways (because I "want the sale") then I have just limited my options because if you have offered a cheaper sale then I can't go back on that. A lot of the people you are going to be interacting with will have little appreciation for your talent and a great deal for how much you are going to cost them. So keep that in mind as you negotiate.

A Trick Versus An Illusion: Illusion as a form of art.

I wanted to talk today about the difference between a trick and an illusion.  Many demonstrations of cardistry and card illusions come off as more tricks or displays of skill than they do as a form of illusion or "magic" (From here on I will use the word illusion as I prefer it).  I will also use an artistic concept from a modern art philosopher (Arthur Danto).

Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself- "V: V For Vendetta"

There is a vast difference between doing a show for kids and doing a show for adults.  Far more seldom do adults that I perform illusions for believe that an act of illusion is actually something else than a child does (This gets into the topic of mentalism and belief structures).  The quote that I used above was written by Alan Moore and in a way gets into the topic that I want to talk about.  

One of the primary differences between using illusion and juggling on stage is that illusion in many ways seems to act as a voice as an idea independent of the illusionist own words.  If I were to use a modern philosopher's words illusion can be a work of art in the sense of what Arthur Danto refers to as a metaphor.  A metaphor is when a creation of the artist stands in for an idea or statement of the artist.  For example a blank canvas may represent an artists inability to create.  The artist is attempting to communicate an idea via his artwork standing in as a metaphor.

If I present illusion as a method of simply demonstrating my own expertise and capacity (within the persona of the expert), I demonstrate technique but I don't demonstrate artwork (I feel that technique is not necessarily artistry but rather the capacity to create art).  The moment that I use illusion for this purpose, no matter how entertaining the trick is, it is still a trick.  The power of illusion here is in creativity; to often though we simply ctrl-c ctrl-v someone elses creativity and put it forward as our own success.   How and why do I place it before the audience becomes more important than what I place in front of them.

When we enter the theater the goal of the theater is to create within us a state of suspension of disbelief.  This of course to me equally applies to stage illusion and shows as it does to traditional theater.  In this way my goal is to use the lies of illusion in order to demonstrate a truth as I perceive it.  In suspending ones disbelief if only for a moment, than the metaphor of each act of illusion becomes more acceptable; more capable of hitting home.