Festival of Bullshit

If there’s one thing that annoys the shit out of me, it’s talentless fucks horning in on other people’s creativity to make a buck.

Agents, managers whatever you want to call them, the world is filled with a huge tranche of pointless middlemen who exist for no good reason.

Take our show for example. We provided the Glasgow International Comedy Festival with two sold out well received shows last year.

Punters, venue and promoter (for want of a better description) all happy. Our reward? We now have to pay for a listing in this years festival brochure, simply because some greedy bastard fancied his pockets lined even more with cash that should be going to the people who actually put bums on seats.

It’s fucking sickening. Tommy Shepherd, who runs The Stand Comedy Club has begun the process of turning the festival into a racket for himself. By insisting on a fee, he is basically taxing the very people he relies on to make a living. It’s like something from Menace II Society or Goodfellas.

Of course, it’s to “cover costs”. Pish. Costs aren’t covered by the dozens of sold-out shows he’ll be putting on? Costs aren’t covered by the sponsorship plastered all over the festival? You think ma heed buttons up the fucking back? Do me a fucking favour.

Now I’m hearing that we aren’t allowed to put a web link on the listing, and haven’t had an explanation as to why. So we’re being hosed AND being told how we’re getting it.

It’s going to cost us £75 to get listed for the upcoming festival which we can afford, but what about the new show, the un-established show, the show put on by folk on the Breu?

Aside from the fact that this fee basically amounts to stealing from comedy acts, it also serves to put grass roots acts off getting involved; exactly the intention I suspect.

Shepherd and his cronies are preparing to turn the festival into an anodyne, slick, big name filled cash cow, deliberately shutting out new, smaller, less mainstream acts thus divesting the event of its original meaning and any real value.

I personally feel we should refuse to pay it. Of course, I will be in a tiny minority. Most comedy acts see bullshit like this as part of the game. But it doesn’t have to be if enough of us tell these pointless fucks to gets their hands out of our pockets.