Not Tonight.


I must have been tempting fate when I recently boasted of how in ten years of Hitchin Mostly Comedy we’ve never cancelled a show outright, as that was exactly what we had to do last night.

In reality, that was the decision that had to be taken - and these things happen - but when you find yourself in a situation like this, you can't help but worry afterwards whether you made the wrong choice, however unavoidable it might have been. A few years ago we found ourselves in a situation where an agent we were dealing with attempted to completely change the terms of an agreement that had been signed off after the deal had been confirmed and the event had sold out, and this put us in the awkward position of having to fight our corner to protect the ethics and identity of the club. While knowing we were right to stand our ground, as if we didn’t, any aspect of the deal could be reneged on at any point, every fibre of Glyn’s and my being bristled at the fear we were making a mistake, yet we held firm, and lo and behold, this ultimately led to the event being reinstated with all our original terms understood; proof that sometimes making an executive decision and sticking by it is the right thing to do instead of plowing on regardless.

That’s not to say that last night’s situation was like the above, other than the fact we initially had to pull the event; no-one let us down, we just had to cancel it. This led to a flurry of time-sensitive correspondence that had to go out quickly so the 150 ticketholders were informed before they left the house. Thankfully, this seemed to work as no-one made themselves known on the door, so presumably they got the message. This was a relief as when a show’s cancelled you’re thrown into damage limitation mode and obviously the less damage that occurs the better.

The worst part of it all is the loss of the money, which was quite vital to me personally. The downside to running this type of business is situations like last night generate twice as much work for no money, which wouldn’t have been the case if the show went ahead. That said, what can you do? One cancellation out of over a hundred gigs or so is not something to cry over as these things happen, though it’s deeply frustrating that I now can’t pay myself for it.

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