All 5 star reviews might be a bad sign.

My show has an issue from an advertising perspective. We are too loved. What can we do to get more haters?

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I am an anti-circus circus pro.

My dad was in the press and he got free tickets to the Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey Circus and to Disney on Ice. I was afraid of clowns. I started doing magic shows for money when I was 11. At age 15, I found old programs from the circus and pulled them out to enjoy the artwork. There was an ad in each one for Clown College. I decided that was for me. Thought I needed to get good at everything: juggling, unicycling, balloon animals, cartwheels, etc.

I didn’t get accepted into Clown College. I’m not bitter. I swear.

My performances gained more than magic and were eventually juggling, comedy, and contortion solo shows. I performed on the street for my crowds doing my stuff. Loving it. Getting paid more than I would have in my first year of the circus and living free.

After my first year on the street, I toured with Brooks & Dunn’s Neon Circus and Wild West Show Tour. It was huge. The highest grossing country music tour ever. We played in giant arenas and Amphitheaters in 41 cities.

It was amazing to have these huge churning crowds gather together and see eachother celebrating this common thing. I loved that.

I didn’t love performing for 15,000 people at a time. It just becomes an ocean of roar. Connecting with the front row is detrimental to the experience of the person in the 50th row. The person in the 100th row can’t see what’s happening without a TV screen. No matter how good the sound was, the sound was bad. I heard Brooks & Dunn’s new hit all summer on stage, but didn’t recognize it in the fall when I heard it on a juke box.

It seemed like the big shows left some to be desired by the bands too. They would occasionally sneak off to a country bar at night and play a surprise show after their big ones. Those nights were epic!

My conflict

As you can see, I appreciate giant gatherings for the energy; but the big shows, even in 2001, were kinda lacking. Now, we have more technology that gives us more of what we individually think we want. Our instagram feed is custom entertainment. Netflix is just for us. People aren’t looking so much for mass-appeal shows as they are looking for personal experiences.

Cirque Du Soleil kept growing. It sucked to be one of 1500 ticket buyers and sit half-way back, but going to THE Cirque was a good story to tell. Then, they added more shows. A lot more shows. I count 47 from the Wikipedia page? Each has a seperate name, but who cares… We still call them each Cirque Du Soleil (or whatever mispronunciations you choose). It’s not as special to go to one. The conversation changed from “it was an incredible night like nothing I’ve ever experienced” to “there was this one act that was incredible” to “it’s pretty cool.”

Circus skills presented in a small crowd are intense. At Scot Nery’s Boobietrap, the biggest crowd we’ve had is 400 people and it’s amazing to see someone risk their life almost just for you.

There’s something about small circus, though. It’s cool to see it small because it’s made for something big. The reason circus acts could do Boobietrap is because they make a living (and pay for their equipment and training) by doing big shows.

Under capitalism, big circus has to get as big as it can get until the audiences start rejecting the generic. Before the pandemic, that was already happening to Cirque. Ringling was already closed. Now Cirque is applying for bankruptcy protection.

Things get old and die

I am not shy about my stance on history. Tear down all the statues. We don’t revere the actions of the past by putting them on a pedestal but by burying them under a better future.

In high school, I made a geocities website dedicated to the history of PT Barnum who I thought was awesome. He was not. His greatest virtue was that he was a liar, he bought at least one slave, abused animals, and most likely burned down multiple shows including living caged animals. You can watch the PBS documentary on him if you can stomach it. For some reason it tries to say all this stuff was cool.

The circus has done a lot of animal abuse and people abuse and has been used to manipulate people for a long time.

We don’t need to give circus CPR if it isn’t what people want – just like we don’t need to save the horse carriage industry.

Go forward

The new game is taking all the powerful experience of what circus was to people, and making a new powerful experience using as much of the carcass of old circus.

I’ve wanted for years for Cirque to go small and special again. Make 500 ticket experiences that are completely different from other Cirque shows. Bend the possibilities of what can happen live.

The CDS brand wasn’t to me about people in weird costumes doing ambiguous stuff to alien music with some big stunts. It was about making wonder and exposing what’s possible for humans to create. There are a lot of ways to express that.

We can reinvent the circus. Or we can keep trying to play tennis with Jello.

This is for entertainers pivoting.

I’ve been a “Hard to follow act” for a long time, and maybe I’ll write about that at some point, but right now, I’d like to talk about what if you’re the act that hasta follow?

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A lot of the entertainment companies I work for are small or solo. Here are some ideas for being your own boss.

Please appreciate that it’s hard

You will never catch up. You’ll never do it right. You’ll always feel like you’re missing something. You’ll have lots of blind spots.

Bosses at companies get paid more (theoretically at least) because it takes an emotional toll, it takes responsibility, consistency, and mostly responsibility. Responsibility is heavy. Anyone can make high level decisions, but it’s not worth it to take responsibility for the fate of the company if you’re getting paid minimum wage.

Separate your boss work

The high level thinking, the big picture stuff, the things only you can do get done when you’re wearing one hat. Maybe literally. Put on a boss hat and figure out where your business is going, what needs to be done to get there. What kind of people do you need to hire, etc.

It helps to delegate work to yourself

… by making a todo list or a bunch of todo lists. I like the Getting Things Done (there’s a short course on Lynda.com) method. You can set up todo lists for your different levels of focus.

• I want to do my boss work when I’m very focused and have more jellybeans to take responsibility for bold moves.
• I want to do some communications work, creative drudgery when I’m a little less focussed.
• I want to do cleanup or fun work when I’m tired.

When you’re the employee

… cleaning your office, sending a bunch of emails, the actual work tasks that are not genius, don’t mesh it with boss work.

You might not feel the wind at your back when you’re working for yourself vs when you’re your own boss, but you can make it easy. Putting in long hours trying to please your boss can be rewarding.

Take the emotional weight out of this work, pretend you have a boss that just wants it to get done, and don’t consider whether it’s the right thing todo at the time. Trust that your boss has already figured out what’s best for the company.

If you think of bigger ideas, write them down somewhere for your boss to review later. Don’t expound on them because you will piss off your boss, or distract your boss from the big picture. Your boss does not have an open door policy.

Block out time to be the boss

If you think of a bigger company, a lot of hours are put into the labor force while there’s only one boss putting in boss hours. Similarly, you’ll want to block out a small percentage of your time to being the boss. It will be not a lot of time, but it will be intense.

This practice of separating your boss time can be really helpful when you’re expanding and taking on more of a boss role. You’ll understand the other roles in the company and will be better at delegating to other people that really exist.

If you never separate, you will never be your own boss. You’ll never have the ability to make the boldest crucial decisions and you’ll also have trouble completing the lower level work.

Stick to the time you allocate. Then, you’re not spending a bunch of time dreaming. You’re the powerful executive.

Understand your employee

A good boss incentivizes the work that helps the business. A good boss knows the weaknesses and strengths of employees. A good boss takes long term plans and turns them into short term projects so employees can be motivated. Think shamelessly about yourself as an employee.

1. When are you likely to get distracted?
2. What work are you just never going to do?
3. Why is some work fun and some not?
4. How can you improve your accountability?
5. Where do you flow?

Track something

As a boss, you’re going to track something like audience growth, income, work produced, etc. As the employee you’ll track something like time spent, or whatever other metric your boss wants for representing your labor.

You’re not going to track everything. That gets distracting and tiring. Tracking is for a simple pass/fail scope of the work. Are we meeting our simple goal? Take the next step.

Promote yourself

When things are working, and there’s work that you hate, promote yourself by hiring a freelancer to do that thing for you.

Bosses are usually not at the top

Even if they’re just friends with an outside eye, it can be helpful to have your board of advisors be other people. Check in with them and see how you as the boss can be doing a better job. What are you missing? If your goal is profits, are you meeting your goal? Just talking to someone else about it can make it more clear and more likely.

Something to cry about. We have almost entered the next stage of lockdown in America. The next stage includes no more whining!

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if you’re a live performer and you feel you have all this value, but can’t use it anymore, you’re wrong.

YOUR. LIVE. SHOW. HAS. ZERO. VALUE.

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Another approach to being rejected is to set up camp on the chopping block. Stay in it. Set yourself up for rejection a lot. Increase your Rejection Opportunity (RO) rate

This is a 3 part series on rejection. Doing it, avoiding it & embracing it.

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Acceptance is usually a way for us to skirt responsibility

This is a 3 part series on rejection. Doing it, avoiding it & embracing it.

Here’s a scenario. Purely hypothetical. You work really hard on your craft. You decide that someone or some committee has enough authority to rank whether your work was worth it, whether you’re a worthy, valid person. You put yourself in front of them. You get rejected. It’s crushing. All your life is wasted!

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Curation is how we get the good. Someone with a voice rejects stuff.

This is a 3 part series on rejection. Doing it, avoiding it & embracing it.

Humans are basically constantly all curating. We’re saying no to 1000 possible lunches / outfits / tv shows, etc. These are usually kinda easy. It can get scary when we start rejecting people.

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What good’s all this brilliant knowledge I give entertainers if they’re not using it? We gotta get going making entertainment better! I keep hearing similar sentiments from entertainment pros right now.

• “I’ve been really lazy since the quarantine began”
• “I haven’t been very productive”
• “I got really depressed from all that’s going on in the world”

This post is not motivational, it is non-de-motivational.

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I work with a lot of small entertainment companies. Often, there are too few staff members to separate the brand from the product.

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I performed at a weed party thrown by a dispensary. It was a show with seven standup comedians and me in a windowless room with a secret entrance. No ventilation. Audience all smoking non-stop.

First glance, this might seem like a dream audience. I usually like a very alert audience, but wanted to see what this was about. Wanted to see if I could meet them where they were and give them a ‘memorable’ experience.

I usually try to watch as much of shows as I can. I am a sponge for learning more about performance; and also I want to understand and empathize with the audience before I go on. I could only watch a little of this show because I was gonna get really stoned from the ambiance and I needed to juggle for these people.

What I saw in this show amazed me and stuck with me.

The comedians were generally not doing well. The audience was very unfocussed. They were respectful. Most of the comedians were poking around. When a great live entertainer is flailing, they’ll keep adjusting until they find what the audience wants. Nobody was really finding it. I was in and out of the room checking each act.

The fourth act was reading jokes about marriage out of his notebook (ugh) and getting nothing from the audience. Five minutes in, he stopped. Looked up at the crowd. Said “I’m really nervous here because this room is full of smoke and I’m a Jew.” Killer. Big laughs from everyone. People shifted in their seats when they laughed. They were on board! This guy had done it! Next he said, “Oh, so you guys don’t like heady jokes about my wife, but you’ll laugh at Holocaust humor.” A little laugh. “My wife…”

WHAT!!!?!!! WHY!!?!???

I walked out flabbergasted.

When I came back in, it was my turn to perform. I killed. I scared the fuck out of them by juggling knives, I used short jokes. Changed the pacing, volume, proximity, and everything else non-stop to deal with short attention spans. Big laughs and engagement and it was fun. Just want to clarify that I am great here. It’s not the funnest type of audience, but it was good to know it’s possible to engage them.

This dude

This dude’s actions so stuck with me because of the attitude. I could not believe it. Here are some parts of it.

1. He pulled out a joke that was actually funny.
2. He connected with the moment.
3. He got the first solid laugh of the night.
4. He noticed that the audience liked it.
5. He determined what they liked.
6. He announced he knew what they liked.
7. He gave them no more of it.
8. He was not a beginner – pro over a decade and had made some TV appearances and stuff.

I had seen performers deny an audience the good stuff before, but never this knowingly and this blatantly. It was a certain apex of understanding for me.

It’s kill or be killed

Entertainment is a trade. Like other trades, it’s pass / fail. You shoe a horse or you don’t. You weave a rug or you don’t. You make them laugh or you don’t.

You don’t want your plumber to say “There’s still water pouring in your bedroom. My work is done. Your pipes didn’t really like my type of plumbing.”

This kind of defense mechanism doesn’t have a place in show business and it’s not rewarding for the performer.

Vulnerability is very rewarding and it’s the thing that connects best with an audience. Great standup is beautiful because it is so exposed and everyone in the room feels the stakes. “This person needs to make us laugh or they will die!”

We can always get locked up in “artistry” or “taste” because we get scared of facing the grade. Finding your audience and being amazing for them is one thing, but this story isn’t a case of a the wrong audience. He committed to this audience. If you have an audience that showed up for you, or you decided to make something for them; it’s up to you to provide them entertainment.

Seeking celebrity is just as shallow as seeking to be a self-respecting entertainer.

We all wanna make a dent in the world. We want to leave a legacy. We want to affect others. When people seek celebrity, I believe they’re trying to replicate people who they saw made a difference in the world.

Let’s drop candy

You have a hundred candy canes and you drop them one at a time from a balcony on people at a cafe. Annoying. Put all 100 in a bag and drop them on one person. That person gets knocked out. Which tactic makes a bigger impact?

• what if the unconscious person is a boxer and being knocked out doesn’t really bother her?
• what if 3 of the 100 are deathly allergic to artificial peppermint?
• what if a cult who believes in sky candy saw one of the incidents?
• what if passers-by were having diabetic attacks?

There are a lot of unknowns. Even if everything was as it seems, and everyone’s equal, it’s still a judgement call whether to make a small annoyance on many or a KO on one.

Is it better to be on a sitcom where you’re reciting lines you don’t believe in or have a poetry night with 1000 people who hang on your every word?

Shut Up, You’re fine

Every time you do anything, you’re making some impact on others and society. I would even say you’re making relatively the same impact on the world no matter what you do.

Popular people are doing a thing that society wants them to do. Break from the thing we want, and yoink! There goes the spotlight. So, celebrities are really playing a role that we want them to, not just doing everything they want.

Measurability

I think the main issue that keeps us in the game is fulfillment. In order to keep on going, it’s helpful to feel like we’re really making a change for people.

A helpful way to horde fulfillment is to stick to one measurable path. If your key performance indicator in life is how many followers you have on Insta, you can look every day, see how many you have, get some more, and you’ll get a lot and you’ll see the progress.

Not everything in life needs to be measurable, but figuring out, “I want to talk to one person after a show who really gets what I do.” Can give you that sense of purpose and help you see how much impact you make. It can make life more of a game.

The roots.

I encourage you, when trying to figure out what you’ll measure, to think back to why you make entertainment? How did it start? That can help to understand what really drives you and what will continue to make life great as you continue to serve people impact.

Finally, Intention

Pick a measurable thing that you feel is really good for the world. Something you truly deeply believe in. Annoying people at a cafe might be exciting, but there are probably better ways to enjoy a balcony.