It’s a generous thing to create a casting breakdown when asking an entertainer to do a job. A breakdown lists the details of the gig as thoroughly as possible so that a potential hire can imagine the entire job.
HERE’s an example
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to submit for this job, send an email to scot@scotnery.com. please send a photo and a few line resume (just like three to five career highlights). Please also, let me know what your break schedule would be for a gentle two hour gig.
HOLIDAY PARTY For staff of The Los Angeles Natural History Museum
Dec 13 at the Natural History Museum (LaBrea tar pits)
Circus Themed
5:15 – 7:15pm … call time 4:15pm
250 guests 5000 sq ft
Scot will be there juggling and making sure we all have dressing room and the basic needs
CLOSE UP MAGICIAN – Walking around the event and doing tricks for small groups of guests. Looking a little circus-y is a bonus
TWO STILT WALKERS – Looking circus-y having fun interacting with the guests
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It takes some time upfront
It takes some time to think about all the details, but it gives performers an easy opportunity to say yes. It also let’s the performers know that we’re not trying to trick them or rip them off or something — that we truly care.
I want to keep reiterating we are not lazy. We are doing great. It comes up in so many conversations with creators. Things are hard to do. It takes a bunch of jelly beans to do what look like straightforward tasks. Simple things are not easy. Here’s a story to illustrate. It’s not a good story.
We have a certificate given to us by the Mayor to celebrate our marriage. A prized possession. The glass on the front of the frame cracked in our move and we didn’t hang it. For months, I didn’t get the glass replaced. It sat in the garage. I have finally replaced the glass and it’s ready to be hung… Now, we need to figure out where.
I was thinking today if the glass broke again, it would be okay because I could just replace it again. Then, I realized how much stuff had to happen for it to be easy this time…
find a place to put the frame while it’s broken so glass doesn’t get somewhere dangerous
find out where the local frame stores are
find out what price it is to fix it
measure the frame (get out the measuring tape and put it away again and stuff)
look at the frame to see if it’s easy to repair DIY
search online to see if that size of glass is for sale on its own
find a place locally that sells the glass
find it’s at home depot
go to home depot
figure out which isle it’s in
buy it
wash the glass
install the glass
remove the finger prints
If i did that again, I would be prepared to do some of it and the rest I wouldn’t have to repeat.
That’s a lot of stuff. That’s why it took months for me to get around to it.
This task “replace glass on marriage frame” took up one small line on my long todo list.
Scot Nery’s Boobietrap occured every Wednesday for five years, so we ran into some holidays. We didn’t stop for Fourth of July or Christmas or Halloween. Ticket selling gets weird with all the holidays. So, we gotta think about the experience of the ticket buyer.
Gasp! Another post about empathy! In line with that, I’m writing here about my own singular perspective on holidays. if I were trying to sell tickets to Hindus, I don’t know much about them, so I would definitely do some research so I’m in their heads.
With a regular show, we probably execute it on the weekend, because that’s most appropriate. When we get close to a holiday that our audience will celebrate, we need a compelling reason for choosing which day. I say “will celebrate” because tis’ also possible to throw an event for a group that is decidedly not celebrating that holiday as an anti-holiday show, or who ignores that holiday.
There are non-public-event holidays
Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Labor Day are usually (in my circles) holidays where people have private gatherings with family and friends. If someone is planning to go to a private event, or they feel the need to go to a private event, or they feel left out because they don’t have a private event; they’ll probably not want to buy a ticket.
There are public event holidays
New Years Eve, Halloween, and Saint Patty’s are examples where people are expected to go out to something wild.
There are either way or nothing holidays
Holidays like the Superbowl, Cinco De Mayo might be examples of holidays where people (that I know) are not expected to do any specific kind of celebrating.
Holiday Shows Must Respond
The show has to be on deliberate dates and it has to respond to the celebrated holiday how the audience wants to respond to it.
The thinking
If the ticket buyer is gonna go to a public event in the same week as a show, they probably don’t want to go to the show. They have already spent their money for that week, they’ve already used their good shirt that week.
If the ticket buyer has other options (and the probably do) for the holiday event, they have to have a really important reason that event is good. There is only one day a year to celebrate Halloween for real.
Show dates adjacent to non-public-event holidays could be good on theme.
Thanksgiving is a weird one because it’s not really much of a thing in itself.
It’s good to do a Christmas show starting around Thanksgiving because although people have plans, their plans are not substantial and will most importantly have their family coming to visit. The family needs something to do. This is probably not a time you want to have an adults-only show in the midwest.
Holiday parody shows are pretty sucky
It’s hard to do a Christmas show that makes fun of Christmas. A lot of people have tried. Who is that for? Who really needs to buy a ticket to see someone make fun of a holiday? Someone might need a ticket for a pleasant Christmas show where they can check off on their holiday list that they did a holiday activity. We can make that show and make it fun or weird in our own way.
Quick weird lifehack: when I think, “Why is this thing such a big deal to me?” I change the question to “How do I think this thing is gonna kill me?” If something’s big emotionally, I can usually reduce it down to survival.
Examples:
Having trouble writing an email to a booker
1) I will say the wrong thing 2) I will not get the gig 3) I will not get money 4) I will never get money 5) I will starve 6) I will die
I am afraid of criticism
1) If I get criticized, that means I did something wrong 2) if I do something wrong, I won’t be loveable 3) I will be rejected by everyone 4) no one will every help me with anything 5) I will die
I am angry about dog poop outside my home
1) people are inconsiderate and irresponsible 2) I cannot control them 3) I cannot control the world 4) chaos is coming to kill me 5) I will die
Upset that someone cut me off in traffic
1) people are crazy 2) I’m probably crazy 3) I make mistakes all the time 4) I’m a danger to myself 5) I’m going to die
Making it simple makes it silly
I like it because that’s how my animal brain is working and my animal brain doesn’t have to run my life. I can say, “I’m not going to die if I don’t purchase the most cost-effective toilet paper.” and I can move on. My mind is trying to protect me and that’s great, but I can give it a break and get stuff done.
They say that everything you want is outside your comfort zone, and I agree, but I don’t think “comfort” gives it enough credit. We’re trying to stay non-corpse here!
Setting up a performance space is a deep craft that is incredibly effective and affective. Even experienced entertainment pros think that we just gotta setup some chairs facing a platform and we’re good.
I recently did shows at a resort and the room was not set up right. I got there early and helped rearrange the seats so they were more conducive to a great performance. This made me feel more in showbusiness than anything else.
Here are a bunch of random thoughts…
We were constantly making tweeks to the environment at Boobietrap. Just little things that changed bigger things. Chairs don’t need to always be lined up straight. eg: If I showed up for a punk rock show and there were a bunch of chairs there, I’d be confused.
Audience needs to be close to the stage unless the performance is supposed to be removed like in opera / ballet.
If the chairs are secure and lined up straight, but the show is unhinged in some way or the doors at the back of the room are not closed, this makes the audience feel more uncomfortable than if the chairs are arranged more communally.
The stage usually needs to be bright and the audience dark. Bringing up lights on the audience, takes them out of sheep mode. It can be useful sometimes for more participatory entertainment, but not usually.
Having the audience be well lit just so the performer doesn’t have to deal with the bright stage lights is pretty crappy.
Temperature being low encourages a responsive audience. They won’t subconsciously feel like minimizing their activity like clapping and laughing.
Vents blowing on the audience, making the room breazy is destabilizing. Usually this isn’t helpful.
Low ceilings are usually better for comedy than grand rooms.
We usually want the whole audience close to the stage. The way to do that is make the front row as wide as possible. Performances in the round (like a circus) mean that there are more people close to the stage. This isn’t always practical of course.
Fog machines create volumetric lighting which can change a room a lot without more decor
Having more aisles for walking is good for convenience, but not good for proximity or audience members to each other. Also, if an audience member feels less like they could easily get up, it might be good to subdue them and get them in sheep mode.
The goal is comfortable enough. The goal is not comfort. This is entertainment.
Dirty, unkempt environments are destabilizing. Some performances need more authority, which can be developed thru focus on production quality.
Musician records a demonstration (demo) of a new song
Musician falls in love with this draft recording
No ensuing recording will stack up
Demoitis is a mental block. It doesn’t apply when the demo is actually the best version. If that happens, great!
Demoitis is holding a musician back from getting the next level recording. It happens a lot. It costs musicians lots of studio time.
I’ve never recorded an album, but I can relate. I can easily get trapped by my first draft of something, or an attachment to an old idea.
We can cure demoitis by accepting that we may be victims of it. For me, the two best ways to dump these unrequited loves are to…
Get an outside opinion
Re-evaluate what my goals were in the first place
I think we’re all scared of the creative process, no matter how experienced we are. It’s scary to jump back in after we already got the reward of making something good. The familiar is safer. It’s also scary to let go of some work. It’s also scary to make something good. At this Halloween time of the year, let’s get scared and enjoy it!
Let’s think for a second about non-fungible things as viral content. Everyone has of course read my blog about virality. Everyone has committed to believing what I say — things are most shareable because they are tools for social status.
Because of “Share” buttons, we often think of fungible stuff (videos, images, tracks, webpages, etc) when we think about our audiences sharing our work. We can also think about how they share our non-fungible stuff.
The easiest for me is to think of books. People buy each other books all the time to say something about themselves. Maybe the intention is to say “I know you” maybe the intention is to say “I’m really smart.” A person can say a lot about themself with a book.
This is true for all information gifting and entertainment gifting. Why does someone want to have me perform at their party? Maybe they want to tell their friends…
Hey, I am really good at finding entertainers
Hey, I know the underground world of Los Angeles
Hey, I have a weird sense of humor. I think that means I’m smart. Here’s proof that I’m smart.
Hey, I am rich
There is a person behind purchasing whatever we create. That person wants to show the world their identity. We help them do that. If we’re conscious of it, maybe we can do it better.
I had an email to send. A simple reply for a simple sweet note from a client. It wasn’t a groundbreaking piece of prose.
The question a robot would ask is “What’s the minimum viable action?” I find it little easier to ask something like “can I make it worse?”
Inevitably I’m delaying on something because it’s big. It’s way bigger than an email response. I have a bunch to consider as far as
who do I want to seem to be?
what is the best way to present that?
what does the recipient need?
is it weird to respond right away?
is it weird to respond later?
what do I want to do next with this client?
and a million more!!!
I got to a moment where I noticed that feeling that it’s going to be a bigger deal if I don’t respond at all. I’m going to need to respond at some point. It might take me a lot of time to come up with the perfect joke response. So, I say “I’ll do it poorly” I jump in. Make a one sentence email that is kind, and not a masterpiece, but at the same time not as bad as I imagined it would be.
I thought if I let go of perfection, I would swirl into terribleness. I was wrong. I’m capable of writing a sentence. I have learned this lesson over and over. Making it worse is the best solution I have so far.
I did street performances across America. April 1, 2000 I started in New Orleans, then Boston, San Francisco. Later, L.A., Baltimore, New York, and more. Every city, I performed in tourist areas and every city had different audience types. These were basically the same people ( a mix of US and Foreign folks on vacation) Not only were people affected by the vibe of the neighborhood, they were affected by the culture of the city.
San Francisco is bohemian and art-supporting
Boston (Cambridge) is intellectual and culturally self-important
New Orleans is dog-eat-dog and Bacchanalian and tied to tradition / voodoo / celebration
L.A. is about brands / celebrities / known things
New York brags the best theater in the world
When people are in these places, they join in with the culture because they believe in it. They believe not that they are part of it, but that seeing a street performer in Paris is magical art, but a street performer in Rio is poverty ingenuity.
So, this continues to all things that happen in a city. For locals too. We all believe it and go with it and participate. With Scot Nery’s Boobietrap, we started off selling tickets to a show, and ended up reserving people’s nights at an experience. In Chicago, people want to buy tickets to an interesting show. In L.A. shows are for people trying to meet an agent. Experiences are there for our enjoyment.
When we’re getting a local audience, empathizing is easier when we melt into the culture.
I used to believe in magic. I was a child magician performing tricks I learned in books and bought in kits. The tricks were obviously not magic to me, but my hope was that I would get there. I thought the deeper I got into illusions, the closer I would come to the supernatural. Instead, I got even more clear about how all of us are fooled by the natural into seeing what doesn’t exist. It hasn’t made me jaded, but it has made me less into …
spirituality
luck
magic
astrology
hero worship
and more!
Although I’m very pragmatic and material, this hope for magic transferred into my career growth. I thought I would be great at entertaining and kinda do whatever I wanted and somehow, a leprechaun would grant me fame, unlimited resources, and fulfillment. I got some of that, but not via horse shoes and birthday candles.
Mystique hurts
I believe for us to be motivated to create, we need to be heroes in our own stories.
One way to ruin a story is to make some kind of magic show up that solves everything. The hero must solve the problem. The more agency the hero has, the better. The more the hero is alone, the better. The more the hero turns their flaws into strengths, the better.
The way to do the opposite of waiting for magic is to get specific about what we want to do, and find the path to that thing. We become the hero. We’re not waiting for someone or something to show up and fix stuff. We’re not the dudes in distress, we’re the damsels of design.
We didn’t publicize lineups or special appearances. We had a weekly show and we wanted to sell out every week. We succeeded.
Brand
The main reason to not promote the lineups was for building a brand. We wanted a show that people trusted. The message was, “No matter what week you come, you’ll get a great show!”
I had seen many comedy clubs fall into the trap of needing ticket-selling headliners to sell tickets. The trap is that you imagine you’re going to have Dave Chapelle perform and everyone will come, but usually you can’t afford Dave Chapelle and you need someone every week… so…
Spend all the money we have. Book a well-known comedian.
Good show, fun.
Book a TV show star who will sell tickets, isn’t super expensive, and will do “stand up comedy.”
They perform poorly. The audience doesn’t have a great time and is not interested in going to a comedy show again
Book a local radio DJ who has a following to do her “stand up comedy.”
Not good. Audience burned again.
Repeat this process because we can’t sell tickets to past audiences and we need to grab new ticket sales
Flexibility
One of the things we offered to our entertainers was cancelation. They could cancel any time from the show with no strings attached and no questions asked. This was a little stressful occasionally for me resolving last-minute voids, but it was a nice service to the entertainers.
If someone canceled, I didn’t have to explain to audiences why the lineup changed.
Celebs
We’d have celebrities and badasses drop in and do the show. I thought it was way more fun to surprise the audience with a celebrity drop in than to have the celebrity feel I was using them for their name. I was not using them for their name I was using them for their ability to entertain. I didn’t want people who were just randomly famous in the show. I wanted killers.
Rules
There was no rule that performers couldn’t share the lineup. They all had access in advance. I just didn’t want to do it, even when a potential ticket buyer asked me directly. I didn’t feel that it helped anyone.
This is not my rule for all shows, either. Go for it if you want to promote your lineups. I had several people tell me to promote the lineups and I didn’t hear anyone telling me the opposite, so I wanted to put that counterpoint here in this blog.
“Am I afraid of failure, or am I afraid of success?” The answer is easy.
You’re afraid of failure.
We’re afraid of failure. We’re afraid of public failure. Even when our work is private and we are “my own worst critic” we are trying to protect ourselves from public failure. We might think if we beat ourselves up enough we’ll never fail.
Failing in public evolutionarily means
we’re flawed
we’ll be rejected from our tribe
we’ll die alone under some little scraggly Sub-Saharan tree
So, we’re not facing the failure of losing some money on a book launch. We’re facing annihilation.
Bring on Success
Success to the same part of our brains is great. It almost doesn’t register since we’re so hard wired to look for danger instead of safety.
What does register is the next level of failure. If I have a successful book launch, I’ll be more public. The public will have more expectation of me. I’ll be able to fail more majestically.
This matters because of the process
I get didactic about these word choices because I think it helps to get surgical in our mindsets. If I decide I’m afraid of success, the only way to be safe from success is to stay small. If we decide we’re afraid of failure, we can take some approaches to deal with that.
Set up goals where we’re likely to succeed
Appreciate that success is what we want even though it might not show up on our radar
Set clear benchmarks for success
Understand that the fear of failure is biological and not intentional
Let ourselves fail in certain ways while sticking to the priorities
Celebrate our success
Fear of success is a humblebrag
Maybe “fear of success” was a phrase made to communicate that our feelings are complicated. Maybe it was a way to mollycoddle people who are paralyzed by perfection.
It’s like saying “I’m a nice guy. That’s why I’m single.” NO. You’re single because you don’t have boundaries and you don’t clearly communicate the wholeness of who you are, so your aggression comes out in destabilizing ways!
As creators, we need action. We can say “I’m afraid of failure.” Our egos can handle it.
If our biggest obstacle is also our goal, we will not gamify life. We will not get started. We will not flow.
