Folks want to use us for our popularity, for our vicarious experiences, for our skills, for our “talent,” for our beauty, and whatever else is good about us. I’m talking about “use” in a consensual, “it takes a village” / “lend a hand” kinda way. It’s good to be useful and it’s good to use people. It connects us to each other.
People want to love us
Our audiences also want to love us. Love can only happen with vulnerability. They can only connect with us when we show them something that is deemed by the audience as imperfect. Love is an openness and acceptance of someone for who they are. We want our performers, creators, and characters to be flawed so that we can exercise our ability to love them. We love not because of the qualities of a person, but in spite of the qualities of a person.
Make a surprising move
There’s a book on screen writing called “Save The Cat.” Part of it talks about the importance of a hero doing a simple noble action. Many writers mistakenly think that a hero being tortured is enough to elicit love from the audience.
Saving a cat is a surprising action that reveals more about who we are. It goes against the grain of what the audience might expect.
Suffering is not a flaw, or a vulnerability. We need action.
Since writing about “Supporting Live Entertainment” I have had some time to refine my ire. As Christmastime approaches, a lot of my friends are saying “Support Small (or Local) Businesses.” It’s more of the same thing! Stop it!
The whole concept is backwards
People are worried about individuals losing their small corporations due to big corporations driving them out. According to the capitalist system, big corporations are serving individuals better than small corporations; and that’s why individuals are paying them.
If we agree that the system is working, the best way to help individuals is to support big corporations because they’re serving the most individuals the best — almost a corporate socialism.
If we don’t agree that the system is working, we can work to change the laws and support individuals directly.
Small corporations are corporations too
Big corporations became that way by being small corporations that found a way to motivate profits and scale. This is usually done by serving a need of individuals.
Built in to this concept of “support small businesses” is often the idea that businesses are evil if they’re big. So we support the small ones, even though they might not be focused on serving a need. If we’re successful, we’ll turn a small business that sucks into a big business that sucks!
It’s up to businesses to support us
Businesses are not charities. They are meant to deliver things that individuals or other businesses value.
The killing local businesses way of thinking
Businesses get killed. As technology, society, and other stuff improves, the horse-cart business, the radio business, the music video production business all fall away. As retail becomes more automated, companies that don’t automate die. This is how it works.
Folks cry out “Amazon is killing the mom & pop bookstore.” And they’re right. If a mom & pop is operating on an old model that used to serve people and no longer serves them as well as Amazon, they will die. The same way movies killed Vaudeville.
The thing is, Amazon is not killing every mom & pop bookstore. There are bookstores that still serve their communities something special. Heck, there are still companies that build horse carts.
Bookstores can offer…
a comforting environment
a special shopping experience
a community hub
events
connection
a sensory experience
education
and much more that Amazon cannot offer at scale
Big companies are not afraid of small companies
Big companies look for profits. If they see a way a small company is making profits that they could make, they go for it. It’s not fear, or seeking destruction. It’s moral neutrality and capitalist pursuit (I’m not endorsing it as a great thing).
We can help small or local businesses
The real way to help a small or local business is to help that one business directly and specifically. If we think that a small business offers incredible value to individuals (not just the value of being small) we can educate and remind people about the value they provide. That’s great. That’s a way we serve individuals – by helping them find a helpful service.
We, as creators, can shed this way of thinking
The core of this whole thing is how I believe this “support” mindset hurts us as entertainment people.
We are tasked with making things people want.
We are not tasked with making things that are arbitrarily “creative”
We don’t deserve money just because we’re making something
We don’t deserve fans just because we’re small
We have ways of making stuff that nobody else and no other business can. We have the opportunity to be categories of one. We have the ability to change entertainment forever. The world has a headache that we can cure. There is something in the world that’s missing. We can see it and we can create it.
I am an advocate of value-based pricing. If the entertainment we provide is so simplified, generic, automated, and scaleable all customers get the same price, then that’s a wonderful load off. Unfortunately, that’s nearly never the case.
I know it’s hard to look at one’s self and see all that we put in. I see this issue over and over in my clients. It gets easier after someone’s guided us through the process with our own specific details. Here is a template, though.
We can devalue ourselves easily by thinking we’re offering one thing.
If we think “I’m offering one thing. It’s a singing telegram. Therefore, my singing telegram is worth as much as any other singing telegram.” This is where we get into this whole terrible mindset that I fight so much against.
Not all singing telegrams are the same
We wouldn’t expect a singing telegram from Rihanna to be the same price as one from Lady Down The Street or a character actor from a Disney show.
This is not just arbitrary telegram price + added celebrity expense. By breaking down and understanding that value is full of lots of parts, we can make it easier to see our value.
Lady Down the Street
Booking / Administrative costs : cheap she does it all the time
Desire to do the job : cheap she loves her moment in the spotlight
Time scarcity : cheap she has lots of free time
Guarantee that it will be her : If you really need to make sure it’s her, then you might pay more, but most likely she could send a replacement if she’s sick and nobody will care
Travel : free
Security : none
Planning of material: free she sings the same 20 songs. You just pick one
Booking / Administrative costs : includes lawyers, agents, managers all getting paid
Desire to do the job : it would probably take a lot of money to motivate her to do this
Time scarcity : expensive for her and her team
Guarantee that it will be her : this is built in to hiring her and very expensive. Nobody can replace Rihanna
Travel : expensive. she’s not flying coach either
Security : yes
Planning of material: coordination, maybe licensing, tech setups will be required
Costume : something stunning I bet + wardrobe person + hair and makeup person + stylist / planner
Finding the pricing
There’s no set way to find the pricing of these things, but this kind of breakdown helps to understand that the parts (and there are more than I’ve listed here) are not free.
If we’re looking to make a scaleable business, it could be helpful to think about how much it would cost to replace us. Let’s say I got too busy to manage the tech side of my zoom show. How much would it cost to pay a digital stage manager?
For the things where we can’t be replaced, we consider what are likely things that could drag us away from the gig and what are those things worth to us?
a higher paying gig
our son’s baseball game
dinner with a friend
our neighbor needing a ride to the hospital
This is the cost of commitment, and often it’s higher than we would like to admit.
When reaching out to a customer, the honest entertainer doesn’t want to sell them a thing they don’t want. Many of us were raised with this swindling PT Barnum idea of businesses vs. consumers. That’s not how I want to live – trying to keep up with lies; having customers a little dissatisfied.
We’re not trying to con. We’re not even trying to convince. We know what our value is, and we’re trying to communicate that value clearly.
When we present our value, we use positive wording, but we don’t need to make it flowery or make things look better than they are.
What does our customer want?
Do we give them that thing better than anyone available to them?
How will they know?
A comedy club booker wants guaranteed entertainment success
A comedy club booker generally either wants a comedian that will sell more tickets or will satisfy the existing customers. This is the want. Comedians often confuse this with thinking the booker wants the funniest mofos, or the most kiss-uppiest mofos. Sometimes these qualities coincide, but think of how many other ways there are to satisfy the wants of the booker.
The booker often has access to lots of performers. Lots and lots – so many that they are more likely to lose track of who’s available to them than to have trouble finding someone good. A gatekeeper like this with lots of access to resources looks at multiple qualities in a performer and weighs a collection of factors in deciding who’s better.
The booker is on alert for red flags and green flags to help determine the better booking. While emotion is a part of every decision, the facts of message the comic puts forward will position comic.
A comedian who thinks a booker wants a funny mofo, might send a video of riffs that are genius, crowd work, heckler responses, pictures with celebrities laughing. A comedian who thinks a booker wants success would have a consistent, solid set recorded in front of a packed audience in a popular club, with dependable laughs throughout.
We don’t deliver half-way
When communicating our value to our customer, we deliver 100% objective truth (or as close as we can get with our puny human brains). Five stars on yelp says a lot more than “A wonderful restaurant with yummy food.”
We also don’t show customers the product or the raw service and leave it up to them to decide whether it’s best. That would not be helpful.
If I’m a house painter and I show a person picture of a green house I painted, it’s on them to decide what’s up…
“Do I think this painter will listen to me?”
“Will this painter be clean and organized?”
“Will this painter be a good price for the value?”
“Will I be satisfied with the end result?”
“Will my neighbors think I’m cool?”
… And it turns on an intellectual part of the brain that can muddy the waters even more…
“What qualities make a good painter?”
“What are the best colors for a home?”
“Do I like green?”
“What kinds of paint are best to use?”
“Will I be able to ask this painter for advice?”
This confusion is not fun or fulfilling and it doesn’t lead to connection or satisfaction. If the homeowner doesn’t like green, I might have lost a gig based on something dumb.
Okay
So, we don’t make a thing and show it to someone expecting them to think it’s cool or flashy or pretty or funny or whatever. We show them how the thing gives them what they want better than anything else.
Magic is probably the easiest solo, live entertainment to sell as an online show. Folks are used to watching magic on TV and it doesn’t need an IRL audience response to work (although it does work better).
Audience awareness is changing fast with this kind of entertainment, so the advertising message needs to change with it. In March, an online show was novel. At the beginning, it didn’t need to be good, it didn’t need to compete with other shows. At the beginning, general audiences didn’t know what Zoom was.
Now, event planners are savvy. Everyone knows how much of a brain killer video chat can be. We’re all seeing entertainment sprouting up online, and there are a few magicians that are rising to the top of online shows.
We’re all global
Let’s start out by forgiving ourselves for sucking at marketing magic shows online right now!
We have the opportunity to do more shows in more places with less energy spent.
Our competition has the same opportunity – which means they might be able to offer more for less.
We are available to more clients than ever.
We are most likely offering an inferior product to what we had before.
If we’re trying, we’re offering a different service than before.
We have the opportunity to completely reinvent how we do business.
This is a lot to pile on to someone who is also trying to have a life, developing a new show, and trying to handle all the other parts of business. We might also be dealing with just keeping spirits up (I keep them in a spirit cabinet)
Get Less Global
We’re not Coca Cola. We can’t manage a global advertising campaign. We gotta get small to get attention and saturate. Getting small is good for tracking our success too. What’s the smallest possible market we can approach and work to dominate.
If I was a kids birthday party magician in a small town, I might have worked locally doing 250 shows per year. My focus might have been on parents within 30 miles who have a kid 5-10 years old. Once we get rid of the mile limit, it seems like we have unlimited cha-ching, however we don’t have the chance to put up unlimited fliers at unlimited grocery stores and parks. Every other magician in the world with more energy/ experience/ desperation can talk to the parents in my town now. The globality is a hardship.
We gotta set boundaries
here are some ideas…
Do a show locally that no global magician could do. Maybe magic happens on screen and in someone’s front yard.
Get specific like a magic show for 12yos that love superheros
Spanglish princess birthdays
Hospital kids birthdays
Once we have a target, we can make a message and value proposition pretty easily because we will be the best in that small market. We only want to sell 250 gigs in the next year.
Start with value
Screw my name! Forget the clever title of my show! I don’t care about “Wired Magic” or “Virtually Impossible” or “Zoom Zalabim” this stuff is nonsense and doesn’t distinguish anything. It doesn’t add value. As a customer, I care about what serves me.
If we’re competing with other magic shows for our customers, the name “Bloody Mouse” means more than “Magic Journey” and the name mostly doesn’t matter. What matters is the value. Put the value message first.
“Connecting Staff Thru Stunning Shared Experiences.” “A hilarious experience only a true murder mystery fan can enjoy.” “HR Inspiration from confusion”
These are generic, but they’re getting started toward an actual value proposition.
Use credibility
We’re not starting over in our careers here. Bring the value of what we’ve done. I see magicians who are afraid to use footage of stage shows, or past resume. Use it. It’s all value brought to the table. If it’s just a trick demonstrated on video on stage, it’s not great, but if it’s a performance in a stadium for Michael Bolton, it might help show that we’re pros.
“Virtual”
I don’t like the word “virtual.” Magic is shady enough, and this isn’t VR.
I don’t want a person coming out of a laptop or a phone
So many magicians are trying to promote themselves with photos of them poking thru a screen. Please stop.
Not only is it unflattering and a horror movie trope, but it wastes a lot of real estate. If my greatest value is that I am in a screen, I’m not worth much since there are billions of people in screens right now.
Repeat
After we tell our people our message, tell them again. Everyone’s scattered right now. Everyone’s reality is rebuilding. It’s all up in the air. We have new friends, new connections, new cares. We are opening ourselves up to new trusted brands. To become a trusted brand, a magician will need to be in the view of customers over and over again.
Reconnect with people that trust us. Keep serving people that are just starting to notice us.
Basically…
Start with a small audience
Offer something special just for them
Start with a message of what is special
Stay in the minds of our audience by repeating our value and serving
We’re not safe in bed if our house is on fire. I get it, it feels like the best option is to freeze and wait for everything to blow over. It feels like being small, quiet, and still will keep us from getting hurt or hurting the world. That’s not where we are or have ever been.
Everything WONT blow over, and it never will. Everything will always be everything. There will always be restrictions, unknowns, and surprises.
If we’re on a mission, we’re not safe doing nothing.
We each struggled so hard to create something great. I don’t mean “I struggled hard to create a 50 seat play about Shakespeare…” I mean “I struggled hard to connect people with the beauty of humanity!” The Shakespeare show was just a tool to do that.
That struggle was smart. That struggle was our purpose in life. Our purpose is our reason for breathing and eating. Our purpose IS our life. If we don’t work for our purpose, we don’t have life. That is why we’re not safe sitting still.
In human connection we’re not safe hiding our emotions, or being dishonest.
In affecting people, we’re not safe having a small voice.
In looking for a more abundant world, we’re not safe sitting on our hands.
In desiring a world with more laughter, we’re not safe being grumpy.
A feeling of safety helps us create
I’m not saying we need to wake up with a feeling of dread. I’m saying we’re safest on the move. Sure, the house is on fire, but we have a way out and we’re skilled fire fighters. It’s all cool as long as we move. Make something happen. Our audiences are waiting for us to save ourselves.
I’ve had people tell me, “I’m better at editing something than making the initial thing. If you can get it started, I’ll jump in later.”
I believe them.
I don’t know who isn’t a better editor than prototyper. Prototyping is hard. It’s really hard to get started. It’s hard to commit to something. It’s hard to take an infinitely expansive imaginary whatever and turn it into something concrete, simple, and clear. It’s really hard to make the first thing.
Editing is fun, the vision becomes more clear and we’re problem solving. Prototyping is creating the problems.
The key is to get through the prototyping as fast as possible. Strip things down to the basics so that we have something to look at. First, get to the point where we say “If I told someone this was done, I would be embarrassed!”
Then, we refine. We get the relief and we can shift our role over to the fun stuff.
We got an interview with either a typed out thing like a blog or magazine, or a recorded thing like a podcast or morning news! There’s a lot more that can be done than may at first appear!
This is not passive
It might seem like journalists / influencers own their space and need us to respond to them, but they are desperate for great content. They let us in because they think we have great content to share. We could be passive and they could get the minimum out of us or we could show up with guns blazing and give them something really awesome.
When someone asks “So, you’ve been eating ropes on stage for how long?” We can answer in a million ways. EG
12 years
never done that
Way longer than I thought I would… when I started, they were just strings, and nobody paid attention to me, but…
Well, it starts before the stage. When my loving grandmother adopted me at age 11 I had no friends and she encouraged me to make friends of inanimate objects…
It’s been over a decade, and I know it seems weird, but the thing I’ve learned from this career…
check out Mark Proksch pranking one of his news groups. Complete control.
We can also make the questions
Often, we can propose a leading question to the interviewer, or volunteer an extra story to give more and get our point across. Interviewers need to make up questions for deadbeat guests, so if they know that an interesting question will make them look good and get us into a juicy story or joke, bonsai!
Late night show interviews are sometimes interviews, but usually they’re guest lead setups for responses.
Conan doesn’t care about a show in Reno… and that’s not an interesting question, unless it’s going somewhere
We can create the reality
Beyond questions, we can frame our introductions or the context the media sets for us.
My favorite is Rubberboy Daniel Browning Smith — who was arguably the most flexible man in the world — started telling everyone he was the most flexible man in the world (no way to measure that) and Ripley’s called him “the most flexible man in the world.” Then, he had that quote to use.
Similarly, my press releases for my cooking show Crash Course said “Julia Child meets Jackass” And Oakland Tribune called my show “Emeril meets Johnny Knoxville!”
They say it, they’re the source. We’re the winners!
Get some objectives
Three common goals for an appearance or an article:
clarify what’s happening = tell the world the who, what, why, when, where of what it is that’s news.
call to action = Get the people consuming the media to do something – go to a special offer on a website, call a number, etc
get clippings = either get a quotable quote from the writing, or some footage to use in our future promos.
Getting attention is not enough. Let’s go for the gold and use that attention to entertain more folks.
Two more tips…
Use emotion to draw people in. Tell stories, expose vulnerabilities and feelings so that people connect. We are entertainers, let’s make a custom entertainment thing for these appearances.
If it’s a written article, I always see if I can do the interview in written form. Spoken answers can come across wrong or shallow.
I’m fascinated by how people think. We try to find patterns and apply logic to things even though life is random. We try to define “types of people,” reasons for events, the way things go, or eras so we can ignore them and put our minds to rest. Prejudices, conspiracy theories, imaginary protocols, and “bad years” all help us chill.
When we feel that life is dangerous, any stress that comes up must be relieved. The only way to escape crappy stress is a reminder of safety. Logic and categorization promise safety, but they’re only a patch.
Entertainment is a bridge to safety
Entertainment gives us the opportunity to experience stress in a safe sandbox. That’s why we can be stressed out and want to watch a horror movie. The horror movie isn’t stressless – it’s fun stress.
Entertainment also gives us the opportunity to see life from a new perspective. Maybe the world is less dangerous because we understand people better. Maybe we’re safer because we understand our own power better. Maybe we leave an entertainment environment better equipped to deal with surprises and randomness.
This is the gift we give to audiences. Safety + Stress.
If we give only one without the other, they’re either unaffected or we just piled on to the nonsense they didn’t want. Those who accept that life is a game that doesn’t make sense are the most at peace.
Humanity keeps seeking the same superpowers. This thought came to me when pondering the age-old question “why ventriloquists?” A variety show is like one of those superhero ensemble movies. It’s a playful way to explore what life would be like beyond reality. Here are some powers…
Some people who only know me thru this blog think that I’m mean or overly critical. Cool. This blog is meant to create a tension.
When I have a conversation with someone, I’m not usually giving feedback unless requested.
I’m not mean!
Tension is unfulfilling in itself. It either motivates action or causes depression. My goal with these writings is to motivate contrary thinking and possibly fixing showbiz problems. I want to create a better world for entertainment. I think our field has endless potential and I would love people to be liberated from old thinking that holds us back. This is the difference between education and entertainment.
Great entertainment builds or emphasizes a tension, then relieves it. It gives us a safe sandbox to try out some stress in a ‘fun’ way. Education (marketing is included in this) gets our attention, and promises relief if we act.
When we get them confused it sucks.
I help entertainers advertise themselves. Often, they want the tension relieved at the end of the ad. One way to do this is to say, “You can share, or like, or sign our email list, or buy now, or shout at a tree.” Split up our “calls to action” so people don’t feel pressured to do the next thing.
I work with entertainers to be more entertaining. Some want to make things weird, but never want to get to the point of an obvious laugh. Some want to make stuff sad, but never give the audience the release of a good cry.
It’s simple to understand our mission, but it takes real responsibility to carry it out and face the possibility of failing.
From May 2015 to March 2020, Scot Nery’s Boobietrap ran every Wednesday uninterrupted for 254 weeks in a row. It was a meeting place and showcase for some of the best entertainers in the world.
Each night, an audience of 200 Angelenos would cheer and cringe at 15 four minute acts ranging from circus, standup, music, magic, variety, to bizarre.
Produced by Meranda Carter and me.
Hosted by me and genius comedy house band Fire Leopard.
It had a loose, underground feel with a strict structure of 4 minutes per act. If any act went over time, chaos (bubble machines, flashing lights, air dancers) would happen. Audiences were sat in folding chairs.
Chronological
May 6, 2015, Boobietrap started as “Scot Nery’s Platinum Open Mic” at Way 2 Much Entertainment’s headquarters in an Echo Park former factory.
Philip Solomon provided the venue and the equipment to make it happen, then he constantly souped it up and made it more fun. He provided aerial rigging, his network of entertainers and his millions of years of knowhow in lighting, sound, and punk-rock-comedy-genius.
I called people on the phone each week to participate and watch. Each act had four minutes on stage. If they went over time, the drummer ( Philip Solomon or Brian C. Janes [who was the entire house band]) would strike a giant bass drum.
May 13, 2015, My wife and Stefan Haves encouraged me to change the name to “Scot Nery’s Boobietrap”
May 20, twenty seven acts showed up to perform and I decided it was time to change the format to a booked show.
Dec 23, 2015 (show #34) Fire Leopard became the new house band.
May 2016, Charlie Haid shot and edited this TV show pitch for the show at the original venue…
June 2016, Boobietrap moved to Fais Do Do in West Adams. It was a big club where lots of jazz greats had performed. Gritty as heck, just like our original venue and we could sell booze!
June & July 2016, We took it to the San Diego Fringe Festival
July 2016, We went to The Oregon County fair with the show
September 2016, We took it to The Kaaboo festival
January, 2017, We did a Boobietrap show at the Electric Lodge in Venice
February 1, 2017, Meranda volunteered for the first time.
March, 2017, Meranda revolutionized how we handled volunteer work and got more fun people involved in making the show bigger.
June, 2017, We moved from Fais Do Do to The Whitley on Hollywood Blvd in Hollywood. I tried learning new skills to show off how hard it is to do what people do in Boobietrap…
January 2018, Meranda and I became Boobietrap, Inc.
January 2018, we gave a living room version of Scot Nery’s Boobietrap to a deserving family.
September 2018, Magic Monday hosted a special Boobietrap night
December 2018, we apologized
April 2019, we snatched our rank as TripAdvisor’s #1
May 6, 2020, we celebrated with performers, fans, and friends what would have been our five year anniversary.
