Squareup after the show

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on April 26th, 2011

Are you selling CD’s or DVD’s after your show? Are you limited to taking cash only? Or do you occasionally rely on the kind hearts of the venue to facilitate one or two credit card purchase? (And occasionally give up 10 or 15 per cent to the comedy club manager pirates who let you use their credit card machine for verification?)

Say goodbye to all that! Hook up with Squareup.com and cheerfully accept all major credit cards from those comedy club patrons eager to take home an audio/visual souvenir from your killer appearance!

We read about this ingenious little device (and it’s futuristic, WWW-based system) when we were flying back from a gig in January. We had fully intended to hip our readers to it, but a lot of stuff got in the way– moving to Vegas, writing a book, etc.

Then we ran into Jimmy Shubert at the Fryers Club meeting at the Alexis Park the other night and he had one in his pocket. His enthusiastic proselytizing convinced us that it is the real deal! He pulled out the tiny square device, popped it into the top of his smart phone and nutshelled it for us like the wimpy article in the Southwest Airlines mag just couldn’t. (They emphasized lending money to deadbeat friends. What year is this, 1959? Is the author of the piece a fan of The Ritz Brothers or Gasoline Alley?)

Sign up for an account. They send you the little white doo-hickey–For free! Pop it into the top of your Droid, iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch and swipe that grinning customer’s credit card and– automatically and cleanly and neatly– their card is charged with a pre-determined amount of money. They need only sign on your touch screen to approve the transaction!

We knew it would be awesome, but, after seeing it (and having Shubert breathlessly pitch it), it’s Awesome Squared!

Hop onto Squareup.com to sign up. We just did. Our free card reader will arrive in just 2 to 5 days, says their website.

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