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.

The Two Drives Of Performing

One of the greatest challenges that I have as a performer is balancing the two drives that make me do what I do.

~The need to create something that I find beautiful and amazing

~The need to be admired

Many aspects of the artworld since the end of World War 2 and the rise of pop art during the time of Andy Warhol and such have become more like forms of entertainment rather than objects to be admired.  With the rise of installation pieces and performance art in many ways the nature of art has changed and what drives the artist to create has changed.  A performer who I often refer back to from philadelphia, David Darwin, ends many of his acts with an idea.  That what he creates isn't necessarily entertainment, but something for people to talk about.  That when people see his show it allows them to connect to each other in a way that they might not necessarily be able to do.  The role of the performer, the entertainer, becomes incidental to the nature of the entertainment itself.

In this instance what David has done is to share something beautiful and amazing with an audience so that they can appreciate it and talk about it and share in that conversation.  When I started juggling and practicing fire performance this is what drove me to become a performer and is the reason that even if I were to travel half the world away and have no one to perform for; I would still make sure that I had a small little bag with juggling equipment (and at this point in my life a deck of cards as well).

However, I have to admit, being admired and praised is one of the biggest drugs that I have ever experienced.  I can understand why a comedian keeps coming back, that feeling of being loved and admired; well, it feels good.  In fact, it feels incredibly good.  The first moment I realized what it felt like I was coming out of a bar in northern philly were my act consisted of (among other things) my fire contact juggling routine.  As I was coming out I was stopped and asked for some photos and handshakes.  That feeling of being praised was powerful enough to keep me happy for weeks.  

When you spend weeks developing a routine and practicing until your sick of it; being praised for it an amazing feeling.  I got a chance to meet Daniel Hanson Danson a local "celebrity" sideshow artist.  He looked at me and said that in sideshow the only kind of magic a person should do is "comedy" style magic (as well as comedy style sideshow in general).  Some people refer to "lowering" your style of performance as playing to the crowd.  In modern entertainment this is done frequently by danger, sex, and physical humor (What Danson was referring partially to),

Honestly if you play to the crowd,  you are essentially traveling down the same road as so many other performers have done before.  The crowds become essentially jaded to this approach and the viewpoint on what entertainment is capable of sinks.  Until of course you are reducing art to comedy and tragedy in order to get a rise out of the crowd.  It is easy I believe to become a performer who relies on these sorts of styles in order to get that praise and admiration, but it feels and seems like an endless hole in the artistic community (and I think this theory could be applied to other mediums as well). 

The only other option then is that love for the performance itself and learning how to meet the crowd half way in terms of what you present.  I know that this is the harder way to travel,  but I feel it is far more rewarding for society seems to reward novelty and creativity in the community though the community only sees the aspects that sell sexuality, violence, and their cousins.

Technique And Presentation/Style

When you google the word "Best Juggler" you find that the first three entries are for a man named "Anthony Gatto".  This is a man who works for Cirque D' Solei, holds numerous records in juggling, and is without a doubt truly amazing.  What you will also find that he is referred to in the community as the best "technical" juggler, which makes me ask the question "What is the difference between a technical juggler and a "normal" juggler"?  I don't think that there really is a difference but rather instead the question here is why do we say this sentence.  Rather in many artforms such illusion and object manipulation there is a growing trend in which we are more likely judged not on form of presentation but rather instead technique of presentation.

Technique stems from the green word techne meaning "craft/manship".  When we talk about the technique of a particular art form we are discussing the necessary skills in order to do certain things.  This is your brushstroke,  your ability to do various patterns and juggling while isolated from the ground, your method of glazing pottery,  your ability to do a "classic pass" or a "hindu shuffle".  These are all  examples of "techniques".  If something is a technique then we can say that they can normally be taught in form or another and that they can also be compared and judged to other users of the technique.

This is different from what we might call "presentation/style".  Don't get me wrong there are techniques for how to talk in front of a crowd but while those are techniques of presentation they are different from what I am talking about.  When you present a work of art, an illusion, etc there is usually a "way" in which you do so.  Often enough if people look at many of your works of art they will see similarities between them and they might refer to this as your "style".  How you choose to interweave your various techniques to create a demonstration of/or attempt at art can be considered your style of presentation.

It is difficult to argue about which style of "presentation" is better or worse,  it happens but seems that eventually such arguments are reduced down to I "feel" statements.  The arguments are those of subjective personal statements like "I feel that Gatto is a better juggler than so-and-so" or " I think Francis Menotti (an illusionist out of philly) is an artist in his craft while so-and-so is just a hack".  There are trends that do occur and certain styles of performers will emerge as a whole.  In this way it easy to go back to technique as a judgement criteria,  "I feel that Gatto is a butter juggler than so-and-so because he is able to juggle seven rings and bounce a ball on his head".

The act of demonstrating technique is itself a presentation of sorts.  In this way the lines between presentation/style and technique become blurred especially within the walls of illusion and juggling.  I can't comment on anything else (but I assume there are instances of this).  Within juggling any act of juggling is itself a presentation and therefor technique and presentation are difficult sometimes to determine while in illusion the presentation is often enough used to cover technique and so "blocking" is technique and once again it is hard to determine.

It is relatively easy to comment on the notion of technique,  but in a display of art and skill technique is only half the battle.  I understand that there are some performers who are known solely for their technique and that there performers who are known solely for their style of presentation but both of them are using the other half.  Gatto's style of creating "challenges" in order to demonstrate talent with juggling without actually having to create much "artistic" flavor allows him to use technical juggling primarily for instance.  While he is a "technical" juggler his style allows for that.

So I argue it is not the best of ideas to reduce grading criteria of a routine down to technique without talking about the method of presentation as well.  

Supply and Demand In Sideshow and Entertainment

This is sort of a post in response to a thread on a Facebook forum dealing with sideshows.  I had a few thoughts on the topic of how undercutting or "free" performers/djs/ or other entertainers affects the rest of the industry when it comes to how much we get paid.

Supply and Demand are concepts from the financial world that have just as much impact in the world of sideshow and entertainment.  By understanding how Supply and Demand work within the industry I feel that we can hone ourselves to take advantage of these principals or at least understand what it is that we are actually dealing with.  Entertainment itself is not “one” supply and “one” demand,  but instead it is many demands and many supplies that relate to each other in the same that we as performers relate to each other.  As I am influenced by another performer from whom I learn I find that my finances are interwoven with theirs.

Supply and Demand is a theory of finance about how the supply of a product is related to the demand for a product.  The theory basically holds the cost of a product will decrease as either the supply for it goes or the demand for it goes down.  On the other hand said product’s price will increase when the  demand increases or the supply goes down.  In this instance we performers are a product,  we’re selling ourselves as entertainment.

So the supply for performers and entertainment should also be related to the demand for that entertainment.  In the thread that influenced me to write this there were a number of stories from performers who found that as they taught or were “underbid” by performers they found that the money they could make tended to decrease as well from those venues.  So the notion is that as the “general” supply of performers increases the amount of money we tend to make will decrease.I have heard this from performers over the last few years about the sheer amount of new “entertainers” attempting to make their name.  I have also heard about problems concerning the notion of getting paid.  It seems that this is the case that these two factors are related to each other.  Unsurprisingly there is a demand for teachers for these sorts of circus arts and skills which has caused more people with these skill sets to emerge and add to the supply.

But, I don’t think we are without hope.  I think that by understanding supply and demand we can at least make things better or understand what we are playing against.   What we are often asked is what our specialties are, what makes us different from other performers.  Often enough the fact that I am a 5 club juggler puts me over a 3 club juggler (what juggling entertainers refer to as “hack shows”) in terms of what I am capable of doing.  I am a different “juggler” and there for the supply and demand is going change, there is a different supply of “advanced” jugglers then there is of “beginner” jugglers.  So by me having a specialty that I can “sell” I suddenly become a much more “marketable” entertainer.  So we can change “who we are”.  For the first two years of being an “entertainer” I found that there were so many fire performers that as a male it was impossible to actually get paid as a male fire performer.  For every one fire performer requesting money there was at least 3-5 who would do it for free.

Now I can also change my venue, instead of performing at parties, clubs, and raves I can perform at kid shows, talents shows, ren faires, and the like.  Each of these are a different demand and they each have a different supply.  All of a sudden by being a fire performer who does not mind working with children or talking with others I completely change and now there is much less in the way of supply of performer who do acts like I do.

You can also change the demand.  Jim rose is famous for doing this with Marilyn Manson(you can look up his methodology and study it).  There are a number of sideshow entertainers such as Brian Brushwood and flow artists such as Ben Drexler who have made their name and living by being prominent on YouTube and providing to the community which has a completely different supply and demand.  However being successful on YouTube has catapulted them both to the point where there is a demand for them in the actual world.  So with that being said, you can create demand.  In the case of copycats you can also take advantage of the demand for specific performers or specific style of performers. 

But it also seems that these are all related to each other.  While shows such as AGT and the X-Factor have increased the visibility of side show entertainment,  it has also made it so that the television and YouTube have become part of the supply as well.  As the other aspects of the entertainment industry such as DJ’s have their problems those problems also become part of our problems.  Just some food for thought.

On Persona and Voice

When I originally started to write this,  this was going to a set of thoughts on the notion of performer's personas and the notion of what is referred to in some literature as the "Ultimate Voice" technique. But as I started writing, other experiences I have had sort of fedinto this.  So just to let you know part of this is me writing about my own experiences so I can think about them, and some of this is me trying to share my knowledge and experiences with everyone else.  So if unusual jargain from other genre's slips in,  that is where it comes from.

A persona is the "apparent mind" that can be seen, for instance what subjective qualities does an audience notice about you.  Are you confident or timid; are you a jock or a nerd.  These qualities that give insight into other minds are qualities of a persona.  The interesting thing is that the persona can change.  We see this frequently in acting in which a person plays a character that is completely unlike the person you met onscreen (which of course into the problem that I want to talk about which is associating personas with the persons actual or possible natures).

When an individual is cast repeatedly into similar roles, we call this type casting.  For instance do the names Hans Gruber of Severus Snape have anything in common.  Besides being characters who have similar traits (thick voices, villainous (or anti-hero),  and extremely standoffish) they are also played by the same actor.  We tend to associated the character with the roles he plays rather than his own nature (Chuck Norris Jokes anyone).

A performer who I worked with at a ren faire once said that his persona came to him in the sense that it was everything that he ever hated about entertainers and performers in general.  But everyone loved him (especially considering that every moment was complete with satire due to the purposely goofy hat and his age which he repeated a lot),  but thats the thing when you have a persona is that those qualities are pretty much tied to you forever more.  People associated them with you when you are out on the street.  Hence why I feel for actors who are typecast.

As a guideline I don't enjoy entertaining for my personal circle of friends and family because my "performance" persona is radically different from the person most of my friends know me to be.  I love to show technique and tricks that I have learned but I don't enjoy entertaining because the person that "I" (little "I" here) am is not what you really would call entertaining.  In my search for a better presenation and asking for opinions I come off as insecure.  A few friends of mine who know me in both worlds have often joked about the difference being similar to "Clark Kent"/"Superman". 

Surprisingly in my spiritual practices (warned you "jargain") I have a similar problem.  I find that the persona of the magician isn't the same as the persona of the guy who came in the front door.  To quote my mentor Robert (R.I.P.) about divination "Your just the guy in the room".  But that is what many people see,  the guy in the room.  That honestly is something depends on the initial impression.  It is possible for people to see more than this,  it just normally doesn't happen (of course the word "normal" depends on your social circle).

This all means that one faces a rather difficult choice if ones performance persona is different from ones normal persona.  Are you always in performance persona or do you seperate your world, that is there is a group of people that know you and a group of people that know the other you.  For me,  because I have not found a way to resolve the differences into one persona I tend to shift depending on the circumstances.  I am lucky to have people in my life who know the big "I" and thus most of my quirks tend to be okay but it's a lot more difficult for those who don't.  The big "I" get's to occasionally dance and create art and therefor there is no need to try to be entertaining.

Your Voice-
So the thing that got me to thinking about this is that I found that my ideal performance voice is actually the same voice I use for what is called "vibrating" (in spirit speak).  In the book entitled "Social Engineering" (Which i highly reccomend for any performer) the author talks about a technique for what he calls the "Ultimate Voice" for implanting suggestions or convincing people to do something.  I discovered this voice a while ago when I was learning intonation and vibratory work,  but the technique for each is essentially the same (some food for thought)

Wit Verus Intellect

The last two weekends have been a whirlwind of work,  a performance retreat (Wildfire) and a working burn-style event (Be the Strange).  At both of these events a common thought popped up at both of them; the differences between artistry, entertainment, and performance.  I have given my thoughts on them before (Performance evolving to entertainment; followed by art) but another thought crossed my mind as well.  One's wit and one's intellect.
We use wit and intellect interchangeably or at least it seems that way in our society (I might just be wrong),  but I feel that they are very separate creatures.  Deep thoughtfulness that leads to exploration of ideas is how I use the word intellect.  One applies ones brain to an issue until that issue is resolved correctly. Wit or Cleverness is the capacity to look at a problem and to quickly come to a solution or response to that problem.
To paraphrase someone I know,  "My Job is to be Clever".  After taking comedy courses and theater classes I know that a lot of time is spent create thoughtful intentful comedy routines or acting choices.  To paraphrase my comedy professor (yes there is one), "someone spills a drink on the stage and "NO ONE" stops to pick it up; so much for suspension of disbelief".  There are also plenty of comedians who have been roasted over open flames for saying something extremely inappropriate (The Host of Tosh 2.0 and his rape jokes comes to mind).
I honestly find it more than a little difficult to be thoughtful and clever at the same time.  When I am in the mindset of being an entertainer (which is more and more as time goes on) I find that I can either be clever regularly and rarely thoughtful or I can be rarely clever and regularly thoughtful.  But the truth is that I don't get paid to be thoughtful.  I am paid to be clever ((Making David Carodeen jokes as I have a rope dart wrapped around my neck comes to mind)).
Within the communities that I belong to there is a lot of reliance upon music and non-interactive skills (one of the best jugglers within the industry Vova Galchenko actually has stage fright problems).  In other words artistic endeavors in which social interaction is done within the frame of music, entertainment is done through other means (I have made comments on the nature male/female performances), and or sheer talent (there are plenty of amazing seven club jugglers who are so amazing they do not require the ability to speak or interact). 
But on the other hand I have seen plenty of performers who do not react to a crowd or how a crowd reacts.  Or I have spoken with people who have plenty of room to criticize but are incredibly bashful on stage.  I honestly would have to liken it to any form of partner performance in which danger was involved such as whip targets, knife throwing, or interwoven fire poi.  It takes a certain amount of skill and talent to be able to do that and when it goes well it is an amazing experience and when it goes badly,  it's on youtube for life.  And honestly it isn't the amazing experiences that get as much air time as it is the horrible experiences that are passed around (two girls one cup and any other number of videos that are out there).
The point is,  is that there is a difference between being witty and being intelligent.  I feel that one should keep that in mind before lambasting a performer on how one should do ones job.  It is easy to think after an event how one should have responded to said event but hard to do so during said event.