saintpat
El Dandy
Release the hounds!!!
Posts: 7,664
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Post by saintpat on Oct 28, 2013 15:54:38 GMT -5
Good point on the music -- I know at some point we ended up using a DJ who had ASCAP and/or BMI licenses so he could play copyrighted music. And that license extends to any venue they work, at least as it was explained to me, so the promoter is off the hook.
I was wondering if you'd share some horror stories. I realize you might not want to mention names (or maybe you do if you want to warn people about a bad apple) in some cases, but have you ever been held up by someone at the last minute for more than was agreed upon? Have you ever had to settle disputes between guys who both wanted to go over and didn't want to job for each other? Do some of the name guys act like prima donnas -- or do you run into the same thing with people no one has ever heard of? Anyone ever blade when you forbid blood or anything like that?
I'd love to hear about some of the potential pitfalls like that of dealing with talent, as opposed to just the business end.
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Post by Chairman of the Board on Oct 28, 2013 17:08:02 GMT -5
Honestly, I've never really had an horror stories.
I think I was pretty well liked. I ran family oriented shows so I never pressed guys into doing stuff they weren't comfortable doing. Honestly, I had more people offer to work for free than held me up for money. I've seen guys be dicks, but never to me.
I was never like, oh by the way you're in a tables match. For the most part guys knew heading to the show who they were working. That helps...
Maybe I'm blocking out some sort of horrible memories but I honestly can't even think of a situation in which anything like that happened. My biggest issues were with my ring guy to be honest. He's a great dude, I had a some ass "gig" himself unexpectedly and he hassled me to buy him a new canvas. I did, I'm a sucker. I just figured the ring deal was so good it was worth it to not burn the bridge. We're friends today and I see him at shows still. Happy I paid up!
Ok, I have good story. This is from one of the first shows I was on. At the time Justin Credible was heading back to the WWE for the first ECW revival. Maybe the ONS PPV. Being the Credible is from CT he was kind of a local draw and he was having a "farewell" match. At the time Paul Roma was running the locker room and helping book the shows. Prior to the match Credible must have mentioned he was planning on bringing beers to the ring to celebrate after the match. When Roma heard this he went out of his way to voice his displeasure and tell him not to because it was a family style show...Well, needless to say Credible did it anyway and Roma wasn't happy. To Roma's credit he walked right out of the backstage, slapped the beer out of his hand, and confronted him. I don't want to exaggerate but I think he even pushed him.
I was actually a pretty wild scene thinking back. Roma was the old guard, while most of the locker room spawned from the ECW era. That was the LAST show that promotion ever ran. Roma stopped training guys son after, and I started running from the ashes of "The Beer Incident"...
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Post by Chairman of the Board on Oct 28, 2013 17:15:07 GMT -5
OMG I found an old review somebody wrote on a message board.
Zombie and Justin did a good job. the post match Beer incident. Lets just say that Mr Big shot Roma must have broken that stress ball. this was NOT a drunk thing, it was a CLASSY TOAST between two guys. No harm there, not even a priest from the church would be upset probably. Roma is on a power hunt, hes got it. and no matter what, he will get what he wants it seems. JUST f***ING BS . I would have paid DOUBLE to see Justin give him a piledriver. Plus, he stil lhas the talk bout Spider. well. he can have his fun, I wont be part of that. Makes Ron and Justin look like Shit too, Roma even shoved them. I dont think it was an angle either.
My memory still works!
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saintpat
El Dandy
Release the hounds!!!
Posts: 7,664
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Post by saintpat on Oct 28, 2013 17:47:46 GMT -5
Haha. Good story.
The memory thing reminded me of a couple of years ago I saw Dutch Mantel selling his books at a table at an ROH show the day before WrestleMania in Atlanta.
I grew up watching Dutch (now Zeb Colter, of course) in the Gulas territory and later saw him on TV when I went to Puerto Rico on business. So we had a good talk, he was a very nice guy, he told some stories. I told him I'd come back during intermission to buy one of his books so I wouldn't have to carry it around as long.
So I did just that. Came up to the table and before I could open my mouth he said, "Don't tell me. Your name is _____ and you're from _______, right?" I said, "Yes sir, that's right." He said, well after all the concussions and everything over the years I like to find ways to test my memory to make sure my brain still works.
He autographed the book and threw in a free autographed photo. Was so happy to see him called up to the roster with the Real Americans because he just struck me as a class act, and because I have fond memories of him entertaining me over the years.
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Post by doinkmark on Nov 5, 2013 8:18:05 GMT -5
I'm still learning a lot from this thread and hopefully helping people as well. Here's another question someone besides me hopefully finds interesting: What, if anything, do you guys do to try to retain your vendors? Obviously there's no guarantee of how well they'll do at the show, but right now for instance we're faced with the issue of having successfully sold more vendor space than we've sold tickets. If the crowd sucks the vendor may not come back. If the crowd's big enough to possibly make some money the vendor may come back the next time, even if they don't do so well at the first show. If we can keep the vendors coming back it's a guaranteed amount of money each show, which always comes in handy.
So what do we do? Just hope sales improve? Paper the crowd? Hope for some different suckers, er, vendors, the next show? Thoughts!
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SOR
Unicron
Posts: 2,611
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Post by SOR on Nov 5, 2013 11:40:08 GMT -5
Ok, I have good story. This is from one of the first shows I was on. At the time Justin Credible was heading back to the WWE for the first ECW revival. Maybe the ONS PPV. Being the Credible is from CT he was kind of a local draw and he was having a "farewell" match. At the time Paul Roma was running the locker room and helping book the shows. Prior to the match Credible must have mentioned he was planning on bringing beers to the ring to celebrate after the match. When Roma heard this he went out of his way to voice his displeasure and tell him not to because it was a family style show...Well, needless to say Credible did it anyway and Roma wasn't happy. To Roma's credit he walked right out of the backstage, slapped the beer out of his hand, and confronted him. I don't want to exaggerate but I think he even pushed him. I was actually a pretty wild scene thinking back. Roma was the old guard, while most of the locker room spawned from the ECW era. That was the LAST show that promotion ever ran. Roma stopped training guys son after, and I started running from the ashes of "The Beer Incident"... I think things like this would be a big problem a lot of the time for indy promoters. You use a name and lets be honest. For 15-20 minutes work a lot of these guys are very well paid especially if local. Credible should of done what the promoter wanted especially when Credible is making a few hundred dollars to be there and probably a couple hundred in merch. Reality of the situation is "names" aren't going to listen to "nobodies" most of the time and they knowingly have power over your show because if they walk your big draw has just left. Credible didn't do anything THAT bad (although a dick move) but I've heard stories of Sabu holding an Australian promoter up for drugs before a hardcore match refusing to go on if he didn't get marijuana pronto and tons of other stories. I think if you're getting paid you do what the promoter needs (within reason) no questions asked, no demands no nothing. And what's with names only giving about 40-50% in the indies? Apart from Japanese guys I don't think I've ever seen a "name" go all out in the indies.
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Post by Chairman of the Board on Nov 5, 2013 16:13:35 GMT -5
I'm still learning a lot from this thread and hopefully helping people as well. Here's another question someone besides me hopefully finds interesting: What, if anything, do you guys do to try to retain your vendors? Obviously there's no guarantee of how well they'll do at the show, but right now for instance we're faced with the issue of having successfully sold more vendor space than we've sold tickets. If the crowd sucks the vendor may not come back. If the crowd's big enough to possibly make some money the vendor may come back the next time, even if they don't do so well at the first show. If we can keep the vendors coming back it's a guaranteed amount of money each show, which always comes in handy. So what do we do? Just hope sales improve? Paper the crowd? Hope for some different suckers, er, vendors, the next show? Thoughts! I honestly never had "loyal" vendors. My ring guy was a vendor so part of the ring deal was that he could set up a couple tables. I've had different vendor guests and stuff, but nobody who really religiously did every show. If you're drawing people vendors will come to you. I had vendors contact me because of videos, pictures, or press releases they read online. I am not the best guy to ask about this because honestly I never valued vendors enough. I had a lot of smaller venues and vendor space was always very little. Usually enough for the promotions stuff and a couple tables for my ring guy. I personally never maximized my vendor profits or even tried. They would contact me and if they didn't seem to overbearing or needy I would contact them back.
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Post by Chairman of the Board on Jan 12, 2014 13:45:40 GMT -5
Here are highlights from the latest show I worked on. I put together the 1st video and my buddy put together the 2nd video.
The show went really well. Pretty much a sell out!
Any questions or comments???
Most of the guy are local. NY/CT/MA mostly. Taven is pretty well known from ROH. Bandito also seems pretty popular.
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