The Tears of a Clown

The world of promoting couldn’t be further from that of a professional clown and although you would assume that the two paths might clip each other during an appearance or two, they would presumably never become entwined in each other’s world.

I write this to pay homage to someone who I have deep respect for.

He is a performing artist, whose act is unique, yet it touches the hearts of everyone who sees it. He is a comedian in face paint, baggy trousers and Dr. Martins and has been capturing the imagination of the young and old for a couple of decades by leaping over moving cars and playing the fool.

When this Entertainment Great announced to me that he was going to promote his own Halloween event, my immediate reaction was that of most experienced promoters – how much are you prepared to lose!

My reaction shocked me as much as it did him, forcing me to evaluate my own mental state and justify why, as promoters, we embrace the risk of an idea or dream, thinking it will be good enough to attract a paying audience. We are essentially playing event poker, gambling often-huge pots of personal money on educated and historical guesses, always chasing the dragon of that big payout when we get the formula right.

Trust me, the intense and very personal thrill, that ricochets around your body when your dream turns into reality, the people come, and you get the realisation that the gamble has paid off, is incredibly addictive. There are few things that come close to the adrenaline rush of promoting. It’s like lightening in a bottle and when you take the lid off, every emotion is highly charged, simultaneously making you laugh and cry, regardless of the outcome. It’s an impossible feeling, yet it never seems to lessen with experience, and that is the wonderful thing about risking everything for a dream.

We do it for the thrill, excitement, and sense of achievement and because we love the adventure it brings.

Throughout the life cycle of my friend’s event, I had the chance to offer advice and share my experience. Clearly I wanted to give him as much help as I could, and on reflection, I needed to have a clear conscience. I had to know that I had done everything I could to make the event a success, for someone I considered a very good friend, who was taking a huge financial risk with all the money he had in the world.

After long wet days trudging up and down high streets putting posters up, standing in shopping centres overcoming the demoralisation of the great unwashed refusing to take your leaflets, after trying to analyse if your marketing strategy is working, then to find that ticket sales are still non existent and arriving at the place every promoter dreads, the point of no return! This is the V1 rotate of the promoting world, when you decide if you are going to pull up short or go for take off, committing the entire budget with no chance of playing the Joker card which allows you to back out gracefully.

The timer had gone off on the point of no return for my friend’s event. I made him acutely aware that this was the last chance to think deeply about the consequences of going ahead and to be confident in his decision. This is a ‘twenty four hour sleep on it’ moment and I left him to go over the figures one more time, look at the risk seriously and come to a personal conclusion on the impact of his final decision.

My directness in the matter caused me some concern. Was I pouring water on his fire? But I felt strongly that I needed to bring those clown feet back to earth, even if it were for a very short stay before bouncing right back into the stratospheric stress of the few days before every first show day.

As it happened, on the night before Halloween (the day before show day) the gates of hell released an almost biblical weather front, bringing wind gusts of over 90 mph raining down on the two circus big tops that housed the event. This would break most promoters, causing them to curl up under the table with a bottle of Jack. I am proud to say that our brave clown pulled up his oversized pants and faced the storm with a steely determination that couldn’t be broken.

The event did happen. And it was a success on many levels. The learning curve for my friend was a steep one, he learnt a lot about himself and those around him. He didn’t get the financial payback, in fact the event suffered a considerable loss, which my friend is bravely philosophical about and has put in the drawer marked “experience”.

I am immensely proud of him and applaud his bravery. I have sat exactly where he sits today, coped with the financial loss and bounced back to promote another day. He is a hero and perhaps not the clown he once was, but a promoter who just happens to own a pair of big trousers and large shoes!