There’s absolutely no reason why a comedy club shouldn’t have clear, detailed booking information for comedians on the comedy club website.
We’re stunned by how many comedy clubs don’t provide this for comics seeking work.
We got to thinking and talking about this recently. And we focused on it even more when we watched the robot video “How to get booked at a comedy club” (See posting below). We pondered the relationship between a club booker and the talent. Not for the first time, mind you.
Since we’ve never had an agent or a manager, we’ve always had to scare up gigs on our own. We have had to interface with club owners and bookers on a regular basis since the 1980’s. Part of dealing with the inevitable frustration has been an attempt to get inside the mind of the bookers, to anticipate their thought processes and their business practices (and we use that term loosely) so as to wring a date out of them. It’s frustrating to deal with them. They don’t exactly make the task easy.
Of course, it’s somewhat of a two-way street.
We imagine the booker might just identify with that dude with the shotgun in “Night of the Living Dead.” (The comics, in this analogy are, of course, the zombies, constantly banging on the door, constantly seeking entry, coming from all sides, moaning.
You have something we want. We don’t just want it… we need it.
But… you need what we offer.
But there’s a way of dealing with this adversarial relationship. We’ve seen bookers/clubs deal with this dynamic in dozens of different ways. Some are brilliant in their simplicity, their streamlining, the exquisite manner in which they simultaneously: 1) minimize contact between booker and comic; 2) clarify the process and ground rules for contact between booker and comic and 3) efficiently provide a)the booker with what he wants and b) the comic with what he wants.
Why can’t all bookers/clubs be this way?
We recall a conversation with a booker years ago. This booker had a system. Let’s say it was, “I only book on Tuesdays between 10 AM and 2 PM.” You’d call between those hours and she wouldn’t be there! Or you would call during the designated hours on the designated day and she would inform you that she had done all her booking on the previous day! (We would eventually secure bookings from this person… so, it wasn’t a case of us being purposely lied to or just us being jerked around. But it was a case of a booker who, in an attempt to simplify the process– and perhaps minimize any animosity or frustration– abandoned her own rules and, in the process, complicated matters and ratcheted up the hard feelings and frustration. Comics love rules. Comics hate it when the rules are subsequently turfed.)
One day we called and she said, “I’ll tell ya… if I have to talk to one more fucking comedian today, I’m going to scream!” And she said it without a hint of irony or humor.
What does a comedian say to that? (The imprudent thing to say would be, “If I have to talk to one more fucking booker today, I’m going to scream.” Instead, the response was, most likely, “Ya got anything in August?”)
Another club owner would engage The Male Half in seemingly endless conversations in which he would piss and moan about how bad the business was, how much he hated the business, how miserable his life was made by comedians, etc. This went on, over the course of months (years?)… without a booking. Eventually a booking came. And the Male Half discovered that working for this gentleman was actually far worse than not working for him. Lesson learned.
We’re in the midst of the grinding process of filling in the holes in our 2010 schedule and booking the 2011 schedule.
We’re conducting most of our booking and correspondence via email. Email has been the dominant way to conduct this kind of business since about 2005 or so. And we pretty much ceased sending out physical (or “hard copy”) press kits in late 2007 or so, instead opting to drive people to our online press kit. We like to conduct business in this manner.
We still call some clubs if we have an existing relationship. No problem there. But calling someone we don’t know is… awkward? Excruciating? (For both booker and comic.)
Lately, we are very partial to obtaining an email address. Then we can send along a letter of introduction, provide links to our kit or to our latest YouTube clip, provide upcoming schedule information and get the ball rolling on a future booking. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
Why is getting an email so difficult? Why is communication in general so difficult, such an imprecise swamp of murky missed connections or outright obfuscation or confusion?
We get a phone number from the website. We call. “Debbie” answers. (Or “Justin” or “Katelyn” or “Jessica.”) We get the name of the booking contact, but not the email address. We get a “better” phone number. (Aaaarrgggh!) Or we get a “better time to call.” (Double aaaarrgggh!) Or we get shunted off to voicemail… where we leave a message… and our call is rarely returned. (But then, why should the booker return the call of someone he doesn’t know?)
One wonders if the booker is purposely building a wall between himself and the talent. If that is the case, one wonders why?
(And if the booker is intentionally building a virtually impenetrable wall between himself and the talent, then isn’t it time for the club to hire someone else? Or, if the booker is in-house, isn’t it time to shift the responsibility to someone else? That’s a discussion for another time.)
But all of this could be resolved through the judicious and conscientious use of email. (We swerve dangerously close to “telling someone how to do their job.” To which we reply: Have you met a booker who is deliriously happy with the way it’s currently going?)
We understand a booker wanting to minimize his contact with the talent. Let’s be real: If he didn’t, he could quite conceivably spend 18 hours per day/five days a week doing nothing but fielding phone calls from comedians seeking work. That would be stupid and wildly inefficient– for all concerned. But there is an elegant way to minimize that contact while still making it clear that the comedian isn’t spinning his wheels, shouting into a void, wasting his time.
And that way turfs the phone and embraces email.
Make the booker’s email address readily available.
Make clear just what information should be included in any booking email.
Make somewhat of an effort to acknowledge receipt of said email. (Even if it’s an automated response, followed occasionally by a real one.)
(That last one is crucial. It sends a message that the comic’s time isn’t being wasted. We have never understood why it’s a capital crime to waste a booker’s time, but it’s perfectly fine and dandy to waste a comic’s time. We acknowledge a certain imbalance of power, a certain slant toward a “buyer’s market,” but hasn’t the business matured to the point where certain of the rules of the business world at large might now apply to the business of standup comedy? Is that asking too much?)
Many sites offer an email form. (A javascript that allows the sender to enter his email address, a brief message and hit “send.”) It’s often the same form that potential customers are urged to use if they have a question about birthday parties or to “make suggestions,” so pardon us if we’re somewhat skeptical that our pathetic entreaties will ever find their way to the appropriate pair of eyeballs via the impersonal (“Handy!”) email form.
We have an what we think is an impressive online press kit– it provides a club with decent resources for promotion and it clearly spells out who we are, what we do, what we’re capable of doing for a club. While we certainly don’t expect someone to return our phone call when they have little idea of who we are, we would at least like to have an opportunity to get the link to that press kit into inboxes so that we have a fighting chance to start a dialogue, to initiate talks that may lead to a booking. We want what every comic wants: To get past the clutter, to get our message in front of the person who can make a decision and do so in an efficient manner that benefits both the talent and the venue.