Tonight's Mostly Comedy was a genuinely lovely gig, despite all the stress and frustration that led up to it.
The spanner in the works, as I mentioned a few days ago, was Simon Day, unfortunately, having to pull out of the show due to filming commitments. In reality, this sort of thing's par-for-the-course and no big problem if it weren't for the misunderstanding of some, but not all, of the people who'd booked. We make it as clear as we possibly can at point of booking that line-ups may be subject to last-minute alteration - such is the nature of any event with so many variables - but as time has gone on and the club has grown, there's a reasonable contingent that ignores this.
The point is, the show we run is a mixed bill and we don't officially credit anyone as the headliner, but for all the punters who know the score, there are always a handful who've seen a big name's appearing and book solely on that basis, often without even noticing there are other acts on at all. We see it in the correspondence we receive, which will often have the biggest name that night as the subject of the email, therefore implying they think they're coming to a solo show.
The policy of our ticket provider, as well as ourselves, is we only offer refunds in the case of a show being postponed or cancelled outright. Outside of that, if a gig goes ahead with the majority of the originally advertised line-up, we're covered. This was the case tonight as, of four acts originally billed, only one was substituted (for another as like-for-like as we could find) and the rest remained the same. Unfortunately, a handful of people who book haven't taken this on board. If we didn't run it this way we'd risk potentially losing a large chunk of money if a swathe of ticketholders decided they wanted a refund because they didn't like a last-minute change.
I won't go into all the details of the emails that went back and forth as a result of people not reading the information properly when they booked, other than to say there was a few trying to dictate how they should be recompensed. A handful of people wanted to move to another gig, which might have seemed possible other than the fact they'd be potentially setting themselves up for another fall if the person they wanted to see pulled out too. And ultimately people really enjoyed tonight's show anyway; for all the punters who didn't come (which was just a few) it there were plenty of them who were on board from the beginning, enjoying the entertainment without any sense that something was missing; it was much like our early bills back in the day.
It helped that everyone appearing was lovely, Neil and Brodi played a blinder in the first half (they're both personal favourites who are that rare balance of being both brilliant and nice) then our old friend Alex Lowe (who usually cracks out the Barry From Watford mask for us) did a set as his Phoenix Nights character Clinton Baptiste during the second half, as a gentle warmup for his forthcoming tour. So all in all, it was a solid night with some excellent acts and a top quality closer, something those irate ticketholders might have realised if they'd (1) paid attention to the deal and nature of the event and (2) came along with the understanding they'd still watch three of the four acts they'd have seen either way.
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| Tonight's Mostly Comedy line-up: (l to r) Clinton Baptiste, Glyn, Neil McFarlane, Brodi Snook and me. |
The spanner in the works, as I mentioned a few days ago, was Simon Day, unfortunately, having to pull out of the show due to filming commitments. In reality, this sort of thing's par-for-the-course and no big problem if it weren't for the misunderstanding of some, but not all, of the people who'd booked. We make it as clear as we possibly can at point of booking that line-ups may be subject to last-minute alteration - such is the nature of any event with so many variables - but as time has gone on and the club has grown, there's a reasonable contingent that ignores this.
The point is, the show we run is a mixed bill and we don't officially credit anyone as the headliner, but for all the punters who know the score, there are always a handful who've seen a big name's appearing and book solely on that basis, often without even noticing there are other acts on at all. We see it in the correspondence we receive, which will often have the biggest name that night as the subject of the email, therefore implying they think they're coming to a solo show.
The policy of our ticket provider, as well as ourselves, is we only offer refunds in the case of a show being postponed or cancelled outright. Outside of that, if a gig goes ahead with the majority of the originally advertised line-up, we're covered. This was the case tonight as, of four acts originally billed, only one was substituted (for another as like-for-like as we could find) and the rest remained the same. Unfortunately, a handful of people who book haven't taken this on board. If we didn't run it this way we'd risk potentially losing a large chunk of money if a swathe of ticketholders decided they wanted a refund because they didn't like a last-minute change.
I won't go into all the details of the emails that went back and forth as a result of people not reading the information properly when they booked, other than to say there was a few trying to dictate how they should be recompensed. A handful of people wanted to move to another gig, which might have seemed possible other than the fact they'd be potentially setting themselves up for another fall if the person they wanted to see pulled out too. And ultimately people really enjoyed tonight's show anyway; for all the punters who didn't come (which was just a few) it there were plenty of them who were on board from the beginning, enjoying the entertainment without any sense that something was missing; it was much like our early bills back in the day.
It helped that everyone appearing was lovely, Neil and Brodi played a blinder in the first half (they're both personal favourites who are that rare balance of being both brilliant and nice) then our old friend Alex Lowe (who usually cracks out the Barry From Watford mask for us) did a set as his Phoenix Nights character Clinton Baptiste during the second half, as a gentle warmup for his forthcoming tour. So all in all, it was a solid night with some excellent acts and a top quality closer, something those irate ticketholders might have realised if they'd (1) paid attention to the deal and nature of the event and (2) came along with the understanding they'd still watch three of the four acts they'd have seen either way.