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Indecent Exposure

To earn a little money whilst at college a guy called Steve Robinson and I used to perform a comedy double act. The humour was fairly surreal but went down well at our own and other further education establishments in the area, so flushed with success (in 1970 when you could buy eight pints of ale at our college bar and still get change from £1, Steve and I were pocketing £20 for a half hour show almost every weekend) we allowed greed and ambition to direct our steps toward a local pub.
The establishment in question had a large Cabaret Room upstairs, complete with resident trio plus the house MC/comedian, and on Sunday lunchtimes they would hold what were technically auditions under the guise of a talent show; eight acts would get seven minutes each to entertain the regulars and whoever went down best got £5 and a free drink right away but more importantly a Paid Booking on the main show a few weeks later.
Despite enthusiastic applause from our bussed in student support Steve and I did not win the prize – yes we got a few laughs from the hard to impress locals but were beaten into third place by a silent magician dressed as a Chinaman and an energetic young lady who sang a Lulu medley and suffered an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction during her seven minutes, redefining for some of us the meaning of “releasing a single”.
So we had done our bit for the pub’s profits by taking along a bunch of mates who spent money at the bar, we had performed for free in the hope of getting a paid booking and/or so-called exposure to a wider audience but we ended up with nothing; a tale which may be familiar to a lot of aspiring British country performers.

One logical answer would be to persuade more venues to let people play for a Tip Jar, it costs the management nothing and gives the acts a sporting chance of going home with cash in their pockets. Pubs and clubs which have regular entertainment could offer spots early evening or weekend lunchtimes, enhancing customers' perception of the venue and providing a stage on which acts can develop and grow without effectively playing for nothing.
However there is something in the psyche of the British gig-goer that seems to turn them right off the idea. People who will cheerfully drop a coin or two into the guitar case of a busker in the shopping precinct without even stopping to listen to the rest of the song will spend an hour in a bar and leave without putting a penny into the tip jar of the act that has been busting a gut to entertain them the whole time.
The current situation is far from ideal – acts need regular opportunities to hone their craft and they should not have to rely on unpaid gigs or vague promises to do so. Of course there are no financial guarantees with a Tip Jar but a regular venue where new acts can get an idea of how their “take” compares to that of other acts doing the same session has huge potential for encouraging acts to polish all aspects of what they deliver to an audience.
UK venues are likely to take a bit of persuading but I am going to pledge here and now to try and get a minimum of three new Tip Jar opportunities running this year. Anybody fancy doing the same?




This post first appeared on Blog Misery And Gin, please read the originial post: here

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Indecent Exposure

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