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.