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, MC, drag, burlesque, performance art, or street performer, this is the show for you.
Speaker 2Hey, rock stars. Reggie Dawson here, your host of the Being On Stage podcast. Welcome back, and I thank you so much for tuning in. It means a lot, each and every person that listens to this show. You know, I've made some terrible decisions in my performances. And I know I'm kind of opening up on a little bit of a downer, but go with me here. Now, you know, I think we've all made some bad decisions for our performances. You know, those shows when you don't really get a response, when what you're doing. isn't really mixing with what the crowd's looking for. And the one that sticks out to me the most was a Halloween show at a club in West Palm Beach. And I was very excited about it. I had makeup planned. I had outfits and everything. The songs that I had chosen were, you know, a little on the rock side. Like, one of them was Manson, and another one was like a rock cover of a pop song. And I get there, and I show up and everything, and I go into the dressing room, I put my stuff down. And I always carry a pre-show outfit, so like, I'm dressed and I look nice before the show. So I drive there comfortable, but then I change into something nice before the show. Go out, hang out with people, have a drink, talk to the DJ, talk to the promoter. And as I'm doing this, and I'm mingling with the crowd and everything like this, I'm slowly realizing that my show is probably not going to go over. The reason is because the people that are there are not rock people. You know how you can just tell? When you walk into a place, like, rock's not their thing. Second of all, the music that's playing is hip-hop, reggae, R&B, and it just, it's, I can tell already, it's not going to go well at all. But it's what I had planned. It's all I had with me. I was, you know, I could not change it at this point. So I went with it, and I did it, and I'll tell you, it bombed. I mean, completely and totally, I got no response. Turned away from me. People laughed at me while I was on stage. People, like, just kind of looked at me. If I approached them, they gave me a look, as in, don't you effing dare. I mean, it really, really stunk up the place. And I was so embarrassed. I was so humiliated. I almost didn't even get paid for that night. Like, it was terrible. Now, don't get me wrong. The shows were good. I have the videos, you know. The shows were good. They were well put together. The outfits were great. The makeup was well planned. And I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but the mistake I made is I had no idea what type of crowd I was facing that night. I had no idea what type of venue this was before I went. I heard Halloween, and I picked something based on, you know, the date and the place, and that's it. I went with it. I didn't ask any questions. And that's kind of what I want to talk about here is we need to ask questions as performers. We've got to find out some information before we go into a place to perform. I mean, you need to know what type of crowd you're going to face. You need to know what music is going to be playing, what the atmosphere is like. You need to know a little bit of information about the venue and sometimes about the town, you know, if you're traveling. Sometimes you even need to know about the city or the state that you're going to be in. Asking some questions ahead of time can really help you avoid some mistakes. Mistakes are going to happen. You're going to have shows that bomb out completely. If it hasn't happened yet, it's going to. It's all part of growth. It's all part of learning. I don't want you to shy away from this because I'm talking about mistakes. If it's one thing that I like to communicate, it's that it's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to mess up on stage as long as, one, you keep going, and, two, you keep going. You can't stop. You can't let this type of stuff stop you. So what type of questions can you ask ahead of time to kind of get an idea of, what's going to go down? What type of show you need to put together? For one, I know a lot of performers, they shy away from asking questions out of weakness or out of fear or out of, you know, maybe you feel like someone's just going to laugh at you or decide not to book you or whatever. So, you know what? If you're nervous about reaching out to the person that booked you, find someone else to reach out to. Like, you can reach out to a DJ. You can reach out to the promoter. You can reach out to, you know, some of the staff that may work there. You can even reach out. To other performers that you may know that have worked there before. So you've got to find someone to reach out to. Now, if someone's booking you, your first type of question can be, you know, what type of atmosphere is this? Or what type of club is this? What type of festival is this? What type of venue am I performing at? Get an idea of what it is. What type of music's going to be playing that night? Now, I mean, of course, if you're the music for that night, you know what's going to be playing. But get a feel for what you're going to be. I've made a lot of mistakes in that realm. I just told you the story about, like, Marilyn Manson in a club that's playing, like, Kanye West, 50 Cent, Future. Those type of artists. Like, and I did Marilyn Manson. It just is, no matter how good my show was, it just wasn't going to fit. You know, it's not going to fit. Sometimes there's nothing you can do. But you can ask questions ahead of time to avoid getting in the situation to begin with. So remember, asking questions. It's not a sign of weakness. It's not, you know, it's not something that's going to make you weak. It's going to help you make better decisions. And I think that ultimately the promoter and anybody is going to respect you for taking the time to find out rather than making a bad decision and affecting their night as well and their crowd. So I'll tell you, if the crowd's not happy, they're not dancing, they're not drinking, they're walking out the door. So whatever you can do to help make them happy, that's what you got to do. So you got to find out some information. You got to find out what type of music you're going to be playing. You got to find out what type of crowd it is, what type of atmosphere, what type of venue. A couple other things you want to find out just to avoid surprises. There's a lot of different venues that have different setups, different sound setups, different DJ setups, different stage setups, different dressing area setups. I got to tell you another story. So me and a buddy of mine, we got booked at a venue in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. God, it must be almost 12 years ago now. And he did most of the booking. And this was before I realized asking equations. This was also before he realized to ask extensive questions. So we're all gung-ho. We got this booking. It's the first time this particular club is having a show. So we're all excited. We're very, very excited. We can't wait to get there. We show up. He goes in first, does the introductions and everything, brings us in. We talk to the owner, the manager, the bartenders, the DJ. We talk to everybody. And I'm slowly realizing, like I'm looking for the rest of this place. Like I walk in and the manager and everything. Everyone greets us. And I start looking for the rest of this place and there is no rest of the place. It's it's tiny. I mean, you walked in and there was there was a bar, there was a storage room, a restroom, about a 10 by 10 dance floor, a pool table and a jukebox. And that's it, like tiny. And in this 10 by 10 dance floor, there was also tables and chairs and dartboards. So it wasn't really a dance floor. It's just kind of like a multipurpose area. I'm looking around, looking around. I noticed this little three by three platform in the corner. Yeah, three feet by three feet and about a foot high. And it that's it. That was the stage. That was our stage to perform on. Luckily, we were only performing one at a time because otherwise it would have been crowded as hell. So, OK, I can work with that. You know, I can come I can come down off my platform. I can walk through the place all 10 feet of it. And so then we get to the part where it's like, all right, so where can we get? And apparently this is a question that you really need to ask, especially if you have an outfit that you're going to need to change into or makeup you're going to have to do or any type of changing that you're going to have to do. You want to ask this ahead of time as if they have a type of dressing facility. So they scrambled a little bit and they were able to get us the beer closet. Yes, the beer closet. Now, when I say beer closet, I mean, there's this 10 by 10 room and in this space there, you know, all. All the walls are lined with beer cases and liquor and everything like that. So and there's a couple of kegs and there's really only standing room for one or two people, maybe. And that's like tight fit. And there's three of us. And that becomes our dressing area. So not only is that our dressing area, the bartenders have to be able to go in and out to get beer and liquor for the bar. So a couple of times as we're changing, they're going in and out. And that makes it even tighter because one, we're trying. To hide our outfits and, you know, depending on how much we're changing ourselves and they're going in and out, opening the curtain, leaving it open curtain. Yes, I said curtain. And it was just it was it was it was bad. I did my makeup in the bathroom and the mirror. People were pissed because I took too long. I mean, it was it was so, so small and so such a tight, tight fit that it just it became uncomfortable. We got cranky with each other and all because. We didn't ask the question ahead of time, because if we'd asked the question ahead of time, time, I would have came dressed. I would have had my makeup already done ready, or I would have figured it out. Like I would have brought a tent or something. I don't know, but knowing these things ahead of time can help you prepare because if you're not going to have a dressing area, you know that you need to dress ahead of time. If you're not going to have a place to do makeup, you know, you need to do it ahead of time or bring a light so that you can do it in your car or something. If you're not going to have much performing space, you need to know ahead of time so that you can kind of plan your show. You know, I talk about, talk a lot about planning your show and planning ahead of time and planning it out, your stage positions, your movements and everything like that. I don't call it choreography because it's not dancing. It's just your movements and how you're going to present yourself at different times of your performance. You can plan that out if you kind of know what you're working with. You got to ask these questions. You got to find out what type of crowd it is, what type of venue it is, what type of atmosphere, who's, what type of performance. You got to find out what type of crowd it is, who the performers have performed there in the past. You know, is there a stage? Is it a raised stage? Is it a flat stage? How big is the stage? Is there a dressing area? Will I be able to do my makeup? Will I, you know, you have to ask these questions and you can't be afraid. Again, if you don't want to, if you don't feel comfortable reaching directly out to the person that booked you to ask these list of questions, find other people. You don't have to ask all the questions of the same person. You can ask the DJ two questions, ask the promoter two questions, find a performer that you know performed there in the past and pester them with the rest. Things like this, you need to know, and it's okay to tell them like, listen, I really want to give your audience and your crowd and your venue the best show possible. In order to do that, I just need a couple of, I just need a little bit of information. All right, great. You know, is there a dressing area? Okay, that's fine. I can work with that. You know, what type of crowd do you have? What type of venue is this? And who's performed there in the past? What type of acts have you had in the past? What type of music have you had in the past? This information is going to clue you in so that you can prepare your show and be the absolute best that you can be on that stage for their crowd and for their people. Again, I can't, I can't say it enough. You're going to have shows that are going to bomb. It's, it's okay. Like I'll be the first to tell you it's happened to me. It's going to happen to you and it's going to be okay. And you're going to be able to move on as long as you move on. In order to avoid a mistake as much as possible, that's where these questions come in. These questions are not going to protect you a hundred percent from making a mistake or from having a show that just doesn't go the way you visioned it. This is not going to protect you a hundred percent, but this is going to help you make better decisions to at least avoid those types of mistakes. And you know what? Here's the thing. I've had it where I've performed at a bar once. I got booked the second time. It was a completely different crowd because it was a different night. Those types of things can happen as well. So never assume, always ask and just keep on moving forward. So before I wrap up, I'm going to ask you two favors. One, if you haven't done so already and you like the show, please subscribe, rate, and comment on iTunes or whatever platform you listen on. I would really appreciate it. And everybody looking for this type of show would appreciate it as well because the more comments and ratings and subscribes I get, the easier it is for this type of information. Second, if you haven't done so already, I have to tell you, we have a group on Facebook, the Being On Stage group. I am in there once, one to two times a week posting. I do videos. I've done trainings. I'm going to be doing another training coming up soon. I'm going to talk about it on the next couple of episodes. So you definitely want to get into that Facebook group. It's completely free. It's not a membership or anything like that. You don't have to commit to anything. There's a couple of questions just so I can get to know you a little bit better. No one else sees your answers to the questions. So if you want to hop in there, there's about 32 of us in there already. You can go to beingonstage.com slash group or you can go to Facebook and search the Being On Stage group. And of course, if you have any trouble finding it, you can always email me, reggie at beingonstage.com. I'll be happy to help you out. Thank you so much again for tuning in. I greatly appreciate it. Keep on shining, rockstars.
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