A Tale as Old As Time

This article on the ABC about one particular shady promotoer promising payment, then running off with the money, misses one key point. This the the norm in the arts. Society values artists so low that no government ever does a thing to protect them. The promise of payment is often not even contingent on having a certain number of camp followers, it's just a stated fee, then when the gig's done, the venue has no idea you were expecting payment and the promoter evades everybody who played the gig. the industry is rife with "to play is the privilege", "pay to play" and just plain, simple lies and rip-offs like this Aussie Gigs scam. And these kinds of ripoffs are scams, pure and simple.

There's a "joke" that tells of a band who the promoter expects to play for free because the venue can't afford the fee. The band's rep turns down the gig (that's the punchline, right there, we're too eager, we musos. Lesson 1: Learn to turn down unpaid gigs) and explains, "You can't afford your toilets being blocked, either, but you wouldn't dream of not paying a plumber hundreds of bucks to bring thoausands of dollars of gear and at least one offsider to your venue on a Saturday night, even with all the added penalty rates of out-of-hours work, but you expect 5 blokes with the same skill level, the same or more years of learning, experience and rehearsal behind them as a plumbing team to work for free. People with families to feed and bills to pay, just like the plumbers. Bring your own party to your venue, we don't play for free."

And still, artists fall for the "the fee is X, provided you can bring Y people." Then the band's people buy their tickets through the outlets, tell the outlet they're buying tickets to see Band Z, the outlet doesn't keep that detail (of course they don't, they're in on the scam, their fee is contingent on losing that info) and the band gets "ghosted" when they try to collect their pay. To hark back to the 5 plumbers on a Saturday night, failing to pay them is, at best, breach of contract, at worst, deliberate theft. The entire entertainment industry is built on deliberate wage theft. Promotor culture has a long history of ripping off the audience and blaming the artists, then ripping off the artists, blaming the audience. It is organised and deliberate fraud.

So, if you're still with me, I'm going to assume that you agree this practice is deliberate, premeditated fraud. So, what do you think would happen if you reported this fraud to "the pigs"? Nothing. They won't even take the report. Because accepting that promotors exist (mostly) to steal from artists. Don't go getting butthurt with me if you're a promotor. Even if you're one of the "good ones" (are you really? Really really?), you'd be lying to deny that most promotors are actively working at stealing from artists. The whole modern entertainment industry is built on stealing from the many to find a few merchantable commodities, not artists, products to the promotors. Dehumanised to commercial commodity status.

Before you start raising examples of how much money this or that number one hit factory "himbo" or "bimbo" makes, ask yourself, "Do I know how much the label or his/her label makes, relative to them?"

Back to our plumber "joke" - how would 5 plumbers respond to not being paid on the spot for unblocking a nightclub's drains. There's 5 salaries to pay, tens, of not hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tools and transport to amortise, there's penalty rates for the late night callout... and there, I'm just as equally talking about a 5 piece covers band. Instruments, amplification and transport to amortise, even if the venue has a house sound system. It's not a fucking hobby, it's a vocation! And what makes you so important that you think a hobbyist providing a service isn't worth payment? Why do you think that kind of distinction doesn't make you an absolute cunt. Just because somebody loves what they do, doesn't mean their time doing it isn't valuable? You want your bar staff to be enthusiastic, cheerful and friendly while doing their job, right, you still pay them, because it's the fucking law!

Sorry, not sorry, that needed to be said. No, it really did. Sit down and shut the fuck up, I've more to say.

There's a solution to this, and self-serving promotors and politicians need to pay attention to this. Standard contract law and contract conveyancing. (Arbitrage, to any Americans reading this.)

In the Australian context, a body like the Arts Law Centre of Australia could offer a service to promoters and artists where, before an artist accepts a gig, the fee is lodged and held by such a body and, if the artist doesn't show up, the promotor gets their bucks back. If the artist shows and performs, they collect their pay from the broker in the middle. Where the politicians come into this is making it compulsory for promotors to be licenced and mandatory to use a recognised arts brokerage, like I propose the Arts Law Centre could operate. It could work for visual and material artists, actors, etc, as well. No promotor would be allowed to book performers for an event without being able to make prepayment for the performers, artists would be protected from theft. Just like home buyers are protected from real estate agents, just like car sellers have to provide a road worthy certificate to car buyers.

Artists being denied the same transactional protections as the rest of society is a blatant discrimination. Any argument that this would "cost too much" is bullshit. I've never met a poor promotor, they own the means of production. Greedy for more money is not equal to poverty, it's self entitlement. On the other hand, like the plumbers in the analogy above, artists do many hours of unpaid work, learning, rehearsing, maintaining their instruments (the tools of their trade) and that does NOT mean they should accept unpaid performances, quite the opposite. All work has value. The work I did for a major Australian broadcaster for 27 years has no greater monetary worth than the work I did with "The Breed" in Hobart or "The Collectables" in Melbourne, or any of the dozen or so other bands. The relationship between artist and promotor or venue is an imabalanced one, in favour of the venue or the promotor, who own the means of production.

Why has no arts representative organisation ever even proposed this? Not the musicians union, not other artistic bodies, govenrmental or co-operative? It's an absolute failure of governments, cultural communities and the artists themselves. Demand payment, even if it requires the Hawkwind approach. They used to organise their own gigs in the early days of the band (the late 1960s) and were dismissed by promoteors until their independently released records began to sell. Until we artists can get real protection and represenatation, get angry, boycott promotors and promote your own gigs. And FFS, record your music and sell copies at your gigs! You're artists, but you're also running an arts business, monetise everything! Sure, it's fun, but you have to eat and pay rent, you are entitled to be paid for the services you provide, and music provides joy, the happiest service on earth, value the service you provide. It's better to stay home and practice than to do a "free" gig for some dude who makes more in one night than you do in a month or a year.