Shayne-Michael.COMedy

How Not To Book A Comedy Road Tour - by Shayne Michael

On the Psychiatric Comedy Tour, I was responsible for mapping out the Tour {AKA} finding cities that would find our brand of comedy appropriate for their listening pressure while being too small for David Tribble to consider booking a show there. I spent eight months on the road booking these shows. So I understand the finer points of booking in "Where The Hell Are We, Montana"

How Did We Find The Venues We Played?

Long before any show, the real work began. We chose a state. In our case, we chose Montana. Then, I would map out a route through Montana. Next, I would use a Randy McNally map to divide that route into towns that we might play along the way. My chooses were based on population and the number of nearby cities. Cities that had close neighbors were appealing because I always had another city to fall back on if nobody booked us in the first city. Our target market was towns too small to have a comedy night, yet too large to be hiding from the Government.

I would unfold a map of Montana and a list of venues for that town {which I got from phone books at the library, CDs that contained the Yellow Pages and dialing information} and I would give Roger {the headliner and booker} a town and a list of venues and their phone numbers. That venue was hopefully no more than 75 miles away from the last town we played and no less than fifty. Roger would call the venues on the list one by one. When he first got a venue on the phone, he would ask if they did entertainment there. If they said yes, Roger asked to speak with the booker. If they said no, he asked if they would consider it. Once Roger got a hold of the person capable of bringing us to that venue he would make his pitch. "We're a touring stand-up comedy group. For only $400 + two rooms we'll pack your bar. It's a 2 1/2 hour show. Imagine your customers in the bar buying drinks for that long. I'm a friend of Sam Kinison and since I start my act in a straight jacket it's the type of shocking act you've never seen before. Now do you want me to sell out your bar or go next door and sell out theirs?"

Convincing The Room To Have Us There

How did we get shows in Where the Hell Are We now, Montana? A lot of Roger's tricks were based on exaggerated credits. I realize opening for AC/DC once doesn't mean your anything special, but not every bar owner in Montana understood that. Every comic eventually shares the stage with a star. To date, I've shared the stage with Howie Mandel, Arsenio Hall and Andrew Dice Clay. I also did many shows with Dat Phan before he won Last Comic Standing. That doesn't make me Dat Phan's opening act. Roger knew how to stretch every credit he had. Sometimes, he outright lied. I can't count the number of times when he bragged about his upcoming HBO special. I can't count the number of times he told venues on his return tour, that he had just finished filming his HBO special that to date nobody's ever seen.

Roger also exaggerated the promotional tools he sent venues. He bragged they would get ten posters, 100 flyers and 100 presale tickets. Sounds good? Not really. Roger cheaply blew up an 8/10 line art picture that could have been drawn by a three-year-old and called it a poster. The flyers were a smaller version of his posters. And his presale tickets came from the rolls of 1000 you might buy at Office Max. His out of pocket expense couldn't have exceeded $15 per venue, even with the $3.00 priority mailing costs. What's the lesson? All this came back to haunt Roger. If you want to create your own road show, sell your credits honestly and invest in real posters and flyers. Roger never thought about being invited back, until he needed the work. His eye was always on his own fortune or lack there of.

Roger did a few things right. He invested in a fog machine, lights and an amp. I know comedians who say, "that's dumb, why would you guys try to book a show at any venue that doesn't have their own sound equipment or lights? I'd only book where they already have equipment." Then you would have worked half as much as we did or got paid much less. A good rule in developing a business is to go where the competition ain't. All the equipment I've mentioned can be purchased for $100 to $250. That $100 investment allowed us to play at least 100 towns that never had seen a comedy show.

The Importance of Working with a Contract

Roger did one thing very right. He worked with a contract. We used fax machines to get the contract to the venue and the same fax machine to get it back signed. Of course, Roger wrote it so some points weren't enforceable. One unenforceable point was that venues that canceled paid double. If you write your own contracts, know the law. 100 percent interest {a double penalty fee} is a violation of the usuary laws. Roger's lucky that nobody who ever contested that clause in court.

If you create your own road tour, have a contract that shows exactly what you are giving and exactly what you expect in return. Our contract told bookers exactly what we wanted in return for our 3 man, 2 1/2 hour show, $400 + two rooms. Our contract demanded AAA accommodations, if possible. It demanded payment by cash or money order. In addition we demanded meals if the venue was also a restaurant. The contract also made it clear we could not be held responsible if an act of God prevented us from making the show. That was important since we were touring tornado country.

The Flaw of a Win-Loose Business Model

But the brilliant business model ended there. Roger often sold people things they didn't need. Or when he realized they could support one show, he'd try to squeeze two out of them. One show would have sold out. Most of the time, two meant he got paid twice and both shows tanked. He did this because he was only interested in one person winning, himself. A good business man looks for win-win situations. They won't sell two shows to a town until they saw the first one overfill and people get turned away at the door. The goal should not be to line your pockets at the expense of the bar. The goal should be to line your pockets AND to line the pockets of the bar.

In eight months we made two rounds through the North West United States. Our first trip was great. But he didn't care about the product he sold. And when that product failed to deliver a packed bar he always blamed the venue. We lost over half of our customers on the return tour. Roger made excuses. "Well, now that they know we're here, next time things will be different. That's why you need two shows this time instead of one. That way everyone can get out to the show." It's like that shifty logic you get from a used car salesman who wants you to leave the lot with today's special: the lemon soup.

So Why Did Anyone Buy The Show In The First Place?

Why did anyone buy the show? Comedians are artists. Bars are in a business. They want to make money. Remember these bars were in the middle of nowhere and their business was sustained by a nonexistent population. Our script for selling our shows was based on getting the customers in and keeping them there 2 1/2 hours long. Only the 2 1/2 hour part was guaranteed by the contract. Why was keeping them there so long important? Because the bar makes a lot more money if people stay in the bar drinking diluted beer for 2 1/2 hours. Even though getting them in the bar wasn't promised in writing, it was part of his sales pitch and therefore expected.

I'm not saying we didn't have any other selling points. We did well getting press in these tiny towns. As a journalism major I can tell you if you write the story for the Journalist with a press release, all he has to do is call the people the story is about and get quotes you will get written up. Towards the end of the tour we even sent each venue advice on how to pack a room. But don't think for a second any one of these would have sold out a venue without the promise of getting a crowd there in the first place and keeping them drinking for a 2 1/2 hour show.

Why Did The Psychiatric Comedy Tour Fail?

Roger's business failed for more reasons than I can count. He had no cell phone. The only way for bars to get back a hold of him was to call him back at the hotel room. Roger made his calls to venues using phone cards we bought from Osco drug and hotel phones. Often times these cards ran out of time as we were about to close deals. Knowing that, it's amazing we worked as much as we did.

Roger also overestimated his sales pitch. Once he believed he had a venue convinced to do show he never called the next venue to back up his plans. Instead he quietly say, "We got that one... And you know how often I'm wrong..." When the first venue backed out, we were nearly always screwed. In the entertainment industry never assume that an unconfirmed booking is confirmed. After three days passed, Roger faced the truth we would be forced to call the next venue. With time working against us, we'd offer them the same show at a discount. If they went for it we accepted a pay cut. If they didn't we ultimately accepted a night off or tried going down the list of venues until we ran out of bars.

We Were Working Five Nights A Week

You would think with an average five days a week for about $300 a day with our rooms covered five nights a week, everything would be great. After all, that's almost $76,000 a year. And that projection doesn't include T-shirt sales, free meals or how much money Roger got to deduct from his taxes because of milage, hotels and meals.

But a business is only as effective as its leader. Good leaders lead by example. If you have a superiority complex, on stage that's one thing. But off stage, I don't care who you are, lose it. You can't be a leader off stage and an insult comic at the same time. Roger's business plan was simple, sell an inferior product to anyone who would buy it. And then sell it to them again three months later. And if it didn't work for that venue, convince them they hadn't bought enough and blame them for the first failure. Through this plan, Roger ensured his own failure.

Lessons Learned in Eight Months of Agony

Within this essay are clues as to how to run a road tour and how not to run a road tour. First off, having a person mapping out the tour was critical. The person who mapped the tour was the tactical advisor. Roger was the salesman. Roger did one thing very smart. He worked from contracts. And in many cases we left a town after doing a great show for a packed room and everyone was happy because Roger lived up to that pitch.

Remember though, a sales pitch is a promise. And while it wasn't written in the contract, Roger promised people would pack into see him. When that didn't happen the bars had every right to question Roger's integrity. In any business getting new customers is the hard part. Once you have them your business will only continue if they continue to want the product you sold them. Getting happy customers to buy your product again is easy.

If you want to book a similar road tour here's my best advice. Sell a better product based on promises you know you can keep without lying about who you are. Make sure you back those things up with a contract and fair promotional tools. Put those promises in writing, also known as a contract. But most importantly, do it for the stage time and experience not to get rich. If you do it that way, and everyone is happy with what you're selling, the money will eventually come.