the Lanark story
Aug. 6th, 2024 12:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scottgalvinthis was by far the worst show that i ever booked/produced.
it was 2016 and i started up a group of local comics with the intention of us all booking shows/helping out with the producing aspects. while it was more successful than when i attempted it in 2011, it left a lot to be desired and was a massive learning experience for me more than any real success. we did a good job building our name in a few areas of northern IL but nothing major. biggest highlight was opening for Randy + Mr. Lahey in Belvidere, IL.
one of the places i got a reply from was The Crooked Roof in Lanark, IL. this show was a massive turning point for me as a comedian and producer. i've never booked a more disastrous show and realistically it may have been when i began to check out from comedy mentally.
first and foremost, i take 100% of the blame for how the night went. i cold contacted the venue about doing comedy. i barely did any research aside from looking to see if they've booked entertainment in the past and if there was an active comedy night already going on. i found out they had bands regularly and had never done comedy. perfect.
now, had i done more research as far as what type of place this was then i would have realized what type of line-up i needed to book there and the issues i faced that night would either be non-existent or greatly minimized. instead, i pictured it to be a dingy little bar in the middle of nowhere full of bikers or day drinkers and figured they'd probably enjoy edgier performers. i could not have been more wrong.
i'd compare this place to Backyard Bar & Grill. maybe TGI Fridays if you're not familiar with the Rockford area. essentially, we showed up with our dirtiest material while a small town of families were having their weekend night out dinner.
i honestly can't remember the line-up well enough. i don't think i ever got to perform. if i did then i blocked that shit out. i remember Jamie Martin hosted and Alex Savant's set is what tanked the show.
Jamie was very new, not comfortable hosting and i threw him to the sharks because i didn't want to host. if i remember right, the person i had in mind to host cancelled on me the day of. i might be wrong there. i did have a cancellation but i can't remember for sure if they were supposed to host. if my memory serves me right though, Jamie was not comfortable with hosting prior to getting there and even more distraught once he saw all these silver haired old white people trying to enjoy their dinner.
his set did not go well to say the least. i think some tables left during it, i can't fully remember. all i remember with any real clarity was Alex going up, he was also maybe 2 years into comedy at the time. he was nervous and because of it he started littering his set with "fuck" every other word. the owner was panicking because i swear on my life tables were leaving left and right. some refusing to pay because of what they felt they'd been exposed to.
let me pause all this and point back to my last post. it was not our job to show up and say crass shit while people are eating until they all leave. it was my job to find performers capable of entertaining any audience. i failed. when each performer showed up and saw the crowd and went into a panic and opted to not even try to stray from their material, they failed. when the owner, who had never hosted live comedy, was panicking to me asking what he should do and i said "cut the mic" and they still let Alex perform for several more minutes as i motioned to him to stop his set, that was on the venue.
they eventually cut his mic, Alex thought it was a tech issue and kept going. i straight up left. i went out to my car and started it and parked outside the door. finally the others got the hint and piled in. as i was about to leave the owner came out looking so distraught asking me what he was supposed to do. i gave him the most honest answer i could come up with and that was "don't worry about paying us, i'm really sorry for this" and i drove off.
i failed.
i posted about it online later that night because Alex and Jamie had each posted pretty comical takes on the night which sparked the interest of many involved with the Rockford scene. Josh Fred (a peer of Marcos Lara) had came out that night to support the show and was one of the first that stuck out to me as blatantly blaming the audience. it didn't take Marcos long to jump in using that narrative, without having been there. his take was essentially "that town probably loves Trump so fuck that bar!" and that is so far from the real issue that was at hand. nobody got political. nobody got religious that i can remember. they talked about purposely edgy shit in front of people that they could easily see weren't enjoying it. i'm not a Republican, i probably have very little in common with these people and yet it still doesn't give me the right to barge into a place where they congregate to eat dinner and relax and start spouting off incest jokes or drug jokes or whatever else i find cute and entertaining, all while having the knowledge that they're gonna take offense. that isn't stand-up comedy. sure, it's performance art. if that's legit what you're going for, maybe give a venue owner or a producer a heads-up before tanking their business's reputation.
it would have been very easy for me to laugh the situation off and blame them but how do you grow from that? how do you prevent it from happening again? you don't. realizing that alienating crowds and venues for the sake of edgy comedy is not a smart long term plan. you're not keeping some "alt scene" alive by doing shit like that. the same way someone like Marcos isn't doing anyone any favors by chasing out a table consisting of an entire 21st birthday party just because one person said something to the person next to them during his set and he decided to stop and scold them until they left. or doing the same at a popular college kid hangout spot when the room is barely considered "full" just because someone checked their phone while he was talking. people like Marcos and his peers have no problem tanking their own shows doing shit like this and blaming it on the crowd and it's why they continuously do it.
if you want to book in places you're comfortable because you feel they'll understand the material you're telling, that's fine. that's ideal. if you're just grabbing rooms for quantity then have some common sense about where you're booking and who you're booking. while all of this seems obvious, the Rockford scene does a lot of ass backward shit and that mindset still dominates a solid portion of the scene.
it was 2016 and i started up a group of local comics with the intention of us all booking shows/helping out with the producing aspects. while it was more successful than when i attempted it in 2011, it left a lot to be desired and was a massive learning experience for me more than any real success. we did a good job building our name in a few areas of northern IL but nothing major. biggest highlight was opening for Randy + Mr. Lahey in Belvidere, IL.
one of the places i got a reply from was The Crooked Roof in Lanark, IL. this show was a massive turning point for me as a comedian and producer. i've never booked a more disastrous show and realistically it may have been when i began to check out from comedy mentally.
first and foremost, i take 100% of the blame for how the night went. i cold contacted the venue about doing comedy. i barely did any research aside from looking to see if they've booked entertainment in the past and if there was an active comedy night already going on. i found out they had bands regularly and had never done comedy. perfect.
now, had i done more research as far as what type of place this was then i would have realized what type of line-up i needed to book there and the issues i faced that night would either be non-existent or greatly minimized. instead, i pictured it to be a dingy little bar in the middle of nowhere full of bikers or day drinkers and figured they'd probably enjoy edgier performers. i could not have been more wrong.
i'd compare this place to Backyard Bar & Grill. maybe TGI Fridays if you're not familiar with the Rockford area. essentially, we showed up with our dirtiest material while a small town of families were having their weekend night out dinner.
i honestly can't remember the line-up well enough. i don't think i ever got to perform. if i did then i blocked that shit out. i remember Jamie Martin hosted and Alex Savant's set is what tanked the show.
Jamie was very new, not comfortable hosting and i threw him to the sharks because i didn't want to host. if i remember right, the person i had in mind to host cancelled on me the day of. i might be wrong there. i did have a cancellation but i can't remember for sure if they were supposed to host. if my memory serves me right though, Jamie was not comfortable with hosting prior to getting there and even more distraught once he saw all these silver haired old white people trying to enjoy their dinner.
his set did not go well to say the least. i think some tables left during it, i can't fully remember. all i remember with any real clarity was Alex going up, he was also maybe 2 years into comedy at the time. he was nervous and because of it he started littering his set with "fuck" every other word. the owner was panicking because i swear on my life tables were leaving left and right. some refusing to pay because of what they felt they'd been exposed to.
let me pause all this and point back to my last post. it was not our job to show up and say crass shit while people are eating until they all leave. it was my job to find performers capable of entertaining any audience. i failed. when each performer showed up and saw the crowd and went into a panic and opted to not even try to stray from their material, they failed. when the owner, who had never hosted live comedy, was panicking to me asking what he should do and i said "cut the mic" and they still let Alex perform for several more minutes as i motioned to him to stop his set, that was on the venue.
they eventually cut his mic, Alex thought it was a tech issue and kept going. i straight up left. i went out to my car and started it and parked outside the door. finally the others got the hint and piled in. as i was about to leave the owner came out looking so distraught asking me what he was supposed to do. i gave him the most honest answer i could come up with and that was "don't worry about paying us, i'm really sorry for this" and i drove off.
i failed.
i posted about it online later that night because Alex and Jamie had each posted pretty comical takes on the night which sparked the interest of many involved with the Rockford scene. Josh Fred (a peer of Marcos Lara) had came out that night to support the show and was one of the first that stuck out to me as blatantly blaming the audience. it didn't take Marcos long to jump in using that narrative, without having been there. his take was essentially "that town probably loves Trump so fuck that bar!" and that is so far from the real issue that was at hand. nobody got political. nobody got religious that i can remember. they talked about purposely edgy shit in front of people that they could easily see weren't enjoying it. i'm not a Republican, i probably have very little in common with these people and yet it still doesn't give me the right to barge into a place where they congregate to eat dinner and relax and start spouting off incest jokes or drug jokes or whatever else i find cute and entertaining, all while having the knowledge that they're gonna take offense. that isn't stand-up comedy. sure, it's performance art. if that's legit what you're going for, maybe give a venue owner or a producer a heads-up before tanking their business's reputation.
it would have been very easy for me to laugh the situation off and blame them but how do you grow from that? how do you prevent it from happening again? you don't. realizing that alienating crowds and venues for the sake of edgy comedy is not a smart long term plan. you're not keeping some "alt scene" alive by doing shit like that. the same way someone like Marcos isn't doing anyone any favors by chasing out a table consisting of an entire 21st birthday party just because one person said something to the person next to them during his set and he decided to stop and scold them until they left. or doing the same at a popular college kid hangout spot when the room is barely considered "full" just because someone checked their phone while he was talking. people like Marcos and his peers have no problem tanking their own shows doing shit like this and blaming it on the crowd and it's why they continuously do it.
if you want to book in places you're comfortable because you feel they'll understand the material you're telling, that's fine. that's ideal. if you're just grabbing rooms for quantity then have some common sense about where you're booking and who you're booking. while all of this seems obvious, the Rockford scene does a lot of ass backward shit and that mindset still dominates a solid portion of the scene.
