Earlier this month I was at The Cornbury Festival where, for
the past four years, I’ve helped in organising and managing The Absolute Radio
Comedy Emporium. I also named it, casually ignoring the minor details of
archaic terminology and factual accuracy.
I tell you this partly to amuse and astound but also to indicate that clearly some things are not as obvious to everyone as they may be to you. You can make a mistake in under-estimating the audience but also in over-estimating them.
In that four year period I have worked with the comedian
& writer Max Dickins and, through a process of trial and error, we finally
seem to have got the balance right. We put on family-friendly comedy and
cabaret during the day and bigger names/upcoming talent later on. In one of
this year’s cabaret segments we’d booked Phil Blackmore,
a juggler who had appeared on Britain
This ‘promotion’ resulted in a few people seemingly making a
special effort to get over to the tent by 3pm which was lucky as he started
slightly early with the fire juggling. He then proceeded to do a
dangerous-looking trick with a Samurai sword, a bowling ball and a jelly baby
whilst making a few jokes with the audience. He’d been on-stage about ten
minutes when a woman left her seat in the marquee and made her way over to the
steward by the entrance. She paused and asked ‘Do you know what time the
extreme juggler is on?’
I tell you this partly to amuse and astound but also to indicate that clearly some things are not as obvious to everyone as they may be to you. You can make a mistake in under-estimating the audience but also in over-estimating them.
This is partly why marketing exists, the fundamental belief
is that it is there to create a desire for something you didn’t know you needed,
but it’s also there to remind you of what you’re getting. If an MC had come on
stage at five minute intervals during Phil’s act shouting about how great the
extreme juggling was then it might have achieved two things – it would’ve hyped
up the audience and resolved that woman’s doubts.
Hype and signposts, that’s what it’s all about, you can
survive without them but you may not excel. You can be as creative as you like,
a true original, one of a kind but unless you (or someone else) are shouting
about it then few will get to find out.
It’s a lesson not easily learned and often fairly difficult
to achieve. Can you stand above the crowd without stepping on the heads of
others? Sadly talent in itself is not enough, you may not believe the hype but
you definitely need it.
When the chips are down, are you extreme enough.....
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