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.

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.