Speaker 1Shut up, and sit down. Welcome to Being On Stage, the only podcast that gives you motivation, inspiration, and confidence to be better on stage. No matter how you entertain, sing, dance, band, comedian, public speaking, emcee, drag, burlesque, performance art, or street performer, this is the show for you. Hey Rockstars, Reggie Dawson, your host of Being On Stage podcast. Welcome back, welcome back. We are at episode 24, and I have to say, I think I forgot to mention this on the last episode, just kind of getting back into the swing of things. But, I am approaching my 1,000 download mark, and actually by the time this episode is dropped, I should be at my 1,000 download mark. So, a little bit of a celebration for me, hitting 1,000 downloads, and you know, it's been a bit of a ride. We've been going now for about, probably like five months, almost five months. And, I have to say, I appreciate every single person that is listening to this podcast. Whether you're just now starting to listen to this episode, or if you've been with us since the beginning, you know, we've only just begun our ride. And, we're going to keep moving forward. Last episode, I was just getting back into the swing of things. A lot of things had happened, you know, the two weeks prior to that. I was gearing up for a big local festival. That's all out of the way now. It was great. I was sore. I was sunburned. You know, it was a great day in April. We fought off a storm. When I say fight off, I mean, you know, we cowered beneath the clouds and begged the rain not to hit. But, you know, a lot of other things had happened in the past two weeks, including I had gotten contacted by two people to perform. It's been, you know, I'm actually coming up on a year since I performed. My last performance was around May 26th of last year, 2017. And, I have to say, it has been an interesting year not performing. I've now approached my longest time now, about just under 11 months without being on stage. The longest time I'd gone before that was just about nine months. And, I have to say, it's been a little bit of a crazy year. You know, I made a couple of decisions. I tried to do an e-commerce store. I failed miserably. It was all dropshipping stuff from China. I had attempted to do, like, a web consulting business. And the funny thing about it is I knew nothing about, like, search engine optimization. I knew nothing about, you know, video. I knew nothing about video advertising. I knew nothing about digital marketing at all. And, I was trying to open a local digital marketing agency. So, you could imagine that failed miserably as well. And, so far, this podcast, you know, it's a passion of mine. And, I thoroughly enjoy what I do. But, being contacted for these two bookings in the past couple of weeks has been an interesting experience. And, through doing this podcast and, you know, I've read books and I've been watching videos. And, I, you know, I look up things that, you know, I've read books and I've been watching videos. And, you know, performers that I look up to, things that they feel about performing and, you know, advice that they give to people performing. And, one of the books I've been reading off and on is by Livingston Taylor, who's James Taylor's brother. And, it's called being, it's called Stage Performance. And, it has a lot of good information in there. And, he mainly works with, you know, musicians and singers and stuff. He teaches a class at one of the New England. He teaches a class at one of the New England colleges. I'm not really sure which one. I apologize. But, anyways, I've been reading that book off and on. And, I kind of looked at these two bookings in a whole different light now. Because, part of doing this podcast is I'm learning new things myself. Things that, you know, I had never learned in the past. I have my own experiences that I can go off of. But, one of the things that really helps me put my, you know, put my thoughts out there is having, you know, constant reminders. In reading this book, I've started to view things differently. So, when I got contacted for these bookings. It happened two different ways. I responded to both of them in the exact same way. You know, what I said was, you know, I'm always looking, you know, I'm always open to new opportunities. You know, keep me posted. One person contacted me and said, hey, I may have a booking for you sometime in May. Would, you know, would you be open to that? And, the way that was done was, you know, it was, you know, kind of, it was non-committal. And, I'm okay with non-committal. The other one that contacted me said, want a booking? Want a booking question? And, in my experience, typically that means that you are reaching out to me to book me. And, I've been approached in many different ways. Some of them, you know, there are professional ways to do things. There are unprofessional ways to do things. But, you can't really fault people for not doing it the proper way. So, you know, I took the opportunity to educate. But, it was one of booking. I said, you know, and I responded the same way. I'm always open to new opportunities. As in, like, yeah, sure. And, a couple hours later, the response was, I got a response earlier, but you can be my backup. And, you know, at first, I said, you know, okay, sure, no problem. I get it. I understand. But, then, you know, it really started to eat at me and eat at me and eat at me. And, you know, as entertainers, we are often tasked with booking other entertainers. I don't know if I'm the only one that this happens to. But, you know, I'm an entertainer. And, occasionally, I'm asked by, you know, a local venue. To put together a show and book other entertainers. And, so, these conversations happen between entertainers. And, it's not. So, like, there's multiple ways to do it. And, this is one of the ways to do it. Just kind of like, hey, very informal. You know, we're friendly with each other. I wouldn't say we're, like, good friends. We don't, like, hang out on the weekends. But, you know, we're friendly with each other. So, I was okay with this informal thing. But, what started eating at me was that you got a response earlier. And, I was going to be the backup. So, for, you know, I talked it over with my wife. And, I didn't really, I didn't really take well to that. And, I couldn't figure out if it was my ego or if it was something else. And, so, I chucked it up to, okay, don't be an egotistical ass. You know, you're lucky to have been contacted. You know, he thought of you. You just took too long to get back to him. So, I was going to go back and message him. And, you know, say, you know, listen, sorry if I came off as, you know, a jerk. Because, my response was kind of like, yeah, sure, that's fine. Very, meh. So, I went back to his page. And, then I saw a posting that basically said, you know, calling all performers. If you'd like a booking, contact me. And, that to me, that kind of put it over the edge for me. When you're seeking entertainment for a booking, putting it out there publicly for anyone to respond to is like saying, I don't care what quality entertainment I got because I just need to fill a show. And, when that's the way that this is approached, and it's approached, as you're not thinking of a specific person that you want to involve, you don't have vision for this show. You don't have direction for this show. You just want to book an entertainer or a few entertainers that are going to fill up the show. And, in some ways, this is making the show about you. Because, it's like saying, I don't really care what I get because I want to rock the house. And, another way, this is also making the entertainers feel devalued. Maybe they don't realize it. But, it devalues entertainers. It does. Because, you're just putting it out there for anybody. Hey, performers, I got a booking for you. Not, Hey, John, listen, I love what you do. I love your act on stage. I think we can compliment each other very well. I have this booking coming up on April 21st. I'd love for you to be a part of it. Are you available? Now, if you have to contact three or four entertainers, that's fine. But, put thought into who those three or four entertainers should be. Don't post it on social media for anybody to respond to. Don't offer it to multiple people and make it like a first come, first serve. I don't know about you, but I'm not in a race. If I'm not the person that comes to mind when you're booking a show, then I'm not the person for the show. And, I think that that's where I've grown the most in the last year. And, I ended up writing him back. And, I told him, I said, listen, you know, I thought about it and I'm going to decline being the backup for your show. And, I was, I mean, I kind of came off a little jerky. And, I said, you know, I know my worth and I know my value and I'm not a backup. If I was not the person, if you weren't just seeking me to entertain in your show, then this is not the show for me. I want to be the person that you're asking to be in your show, not the person that responds to you first. I said that, you know, all entertainers feel that way. I said, I'm going to take this opportunity to pass down a little guidance from seasoned entertainer to, you know, still up and coming entertainer. And, that is, when you're doing these things, when you're doing these bookings, putting it out there for anybody devalues the show. And, you really want to put thought into it. You want to put thought into what the show wants, what you want the show to look like, and who you want to be a part of it. And, then approach those people. If you need to approach a second or third person because people aren't available, you can do that. But, if you don't have a vision of what you want the show to look like, then I truthfully don't want to be a part of the show anyways. And, neither should you. If the person booking you hasn't specifically thought of, you know, hey, you would be great for this, then you don't need to take that. You don't have to feel, you don't feel like you have to take a booking because it's dangled above your head like, you know, like a cheese to a mouse. You don't have to take these bookings that are, I guess, in a way, not even offered to you, just kind of like put out there. You don't have to take these bookings. And, you certainly don't have to take being a backup. So, if you end up responding, I'm not saying don't respond to people that put it out there like that. I'm saying that don't be the person that puts it out there like that. if you think that you fit with that entertainer and what uh what they're shows normally are please respond to those you know to those offerings but at the same time don't let yourself be put to be a backup just because you didn't respond first this isn't really the way that that this should be done you know this should be thought about so how this ended up with this entertainer was i basically said you know i appreciate you i appreciate that you did think to reach out to me but i'm not interested in being a backup for a show you know that was just put out there for anyone to be a part of that's not who i am as an entertainer and that's not who i want to be as an entertainer um i've done this now for i mean if we count the adolescent performing it's just 20 years maybe uh but if we're counting you know adult performing you know i've been doing this for you know going on 13 years i'm not i'm not that entertainer and i think that we should all feel comfortable in saying no to a booking that doesn't feel right i've had to say no to a bar before and this is where i was much younger and kind of what i considered to be my heyday god now it's been probably like 10 years since this bar closed but uh one of the bigger bars that i was performing i was a house name it ended up closing and the owner one of the owners moved on to open another venue and they invited me to move with them as you know to be a house name and so i would go down it's about an hour hour drive from where i live and i would go down there twice a week once to rehearse once to perform sometimes three times a week if you know things were going well and i would go down there three times a week if you know things were going well and i would go down there twice a week if you know things were going well and i would go down there twice a week if you know things were going well the crowd started dwindling now i was doing my part i was bringing in my people but they they didn't have drink specials their cover was through the freaking roof they didn't give me any budget for entertainment other than pretty much paying myself for gas to get there and one night the crowd was so like this was the night that i talked about where i said i performed for four people um nobody showed up and it was because it turns out there was this huge uh festival uh going on at the same time so i was like oh my god so no one was going to be at this club they they tried to not to not to pay me and and i told them i said listen you know i'm i'm driving an hour i don't have a problem if i don't get my full my my full pay but you know you knew this festival was going on you know can i at least get gas money and i let them know like if if the pay is going to be an issue then i i can't keep coming down here for free and you know i at least need help with the gas money and i was honest with them i said you had i had done a lot of stuff i had done a lot of free stuff you know i helped coach entertainers for their bar i helped them book entertainment and i never charged them anything extra when i when i approached them just for gas money and everything the answer was pretty much well then i guess you're just not going to perform here anymore they ended up closing like two weeks later but uh just because they they couldn't they didn't have a good plan going forward but no you shouldn't feel bad about declining a booking that just doesn't feel right and if it doesn't feel right don't do it and if it feels bad to say no like if you feel like you're going to regret it don't say no go ahead and go through with it be the backup but don't forget your value either like don't let people continue to take advantage of you and have you perform for free i worked at another venue that that did that and i don't think they realized that they did that they called it amateur night or a talent showcase and it was almost like an open mic night if they won the talent showcase on wednesday they performed like that following really good for the performers what it does is it continually gets people to perform for free i think now growing up as an entertainer i'm not really cool with that and i you know i'd been there i performed for free at that venue numerous times and occasionally i'd opted to do it because i was going through a time when i was like you know what i don't want you to control my bookings i want to perform when i want to perform so i'm going to do the open mic nights only and you know i did that for probably like a year that was a huge step backwards but you choose what you want to do and at the time that was what was best for me was i wanted to do passionate shows that i wanted to do i didn't want to be held down to a theme i didn't want to be held down to a date i wanted to do free you know free range performing if you will but i still knew my value like you know when i did get approached for bookings for people that wanted to book me i knew what i was worth and you know sometimes i would you know go a little bit a lot on the lower side sometimes i would accept what they offer but i know my value and you should too you should know what you're worth and don't settle for being somebody's backup and please don't be that person that puts that call to action bulletin out there for a booking if you have a show coming up and you've been tasked with booking entertainment put thought into who you want to be a part of it if you have a budget great think about your budget keep that in mind before you approach anybody if you don't have a budget and you need to find entertainment for free i hope you have people that owe you favors because that's usually how i have to get my free time free entertainment is by people that owe me favors but if you're tasked with booking entertainers put thought into who you want to be on stage with you it has to complement your act it's your you know it's your night if a club or venue someone approaches you to put together a show that is your name next to whoever you're booking with you don't you want thought to be put into that like that night after you get off stage and that you know that manager that owner is paying you out for the night don't you want that night to be put into that like that night after you get to say hey you know this was an amazing show great job with you know i this was just perfect like you guys were so perfect together you compliment don't you want that conversation because the other conversation is pretty much silence and here's your money because if that's the conversation that happens with an owner you may not be asked to put together a night ever again put thought into who you want to compliment you on stage because you're going to be up there with them think about that think about the people that you want to be standing on stage next to at the end of the night keep on shining
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