Mandy the Clown: The “Clog”

GigMasters TM : The Service from Mandy’s Perspective.

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 21:36:43 -0400

Many of my fellow variety entertainers, and some of my clients, have asked me about GigMasters. Here are a few of my humble opinions after using it for a couple of months.

What is GigMasters (hereafter GgMs)? It is an on-line service for !!!the listed!!! event talent to find leads for parties and events. The entertainers pay for the listing. (This is very important for the client to know, and I will explain below.)

It is not an agency. It is a national on-line service and it is shaping the local market. It has an element to it that is similar to Ebay (tm) in that it receives inquiries and then requests bids from entertainers who match the requested services. There is a 5 percent booking fee that the client pays, or if the entertainer chooses to do so, he or she can pay the fee on the clients behalf.

I have a listing. I’m number two in my region for clowns. I have found that like any of these on-line services it has some huge advantages for both entertainer and the client. It also has some drawbacks for the entertainer and for the client. On the whole, I have been pretty satisfied with it. I will also go over the weaknesses in this post, however. I think people need to hear from someone who uses it. A healthy examination of the service can help any one using it on either end. I intend to stick with it as long as I am active in the US. Who knows? If they establish it in Europe I may follow it there.

One thing I must add here is that my overall opinion toward GgMs is VERY POSITIVE. It seems to be fashionable these days among the party entertainers in my area to put the service down. Most of them are not listed and are misinformed about the service. Some raise very legitimate concerns, and I share some of those concerns. For the sake of brevity, I will assume that if you are still reading this, you are either a client who has found me through GgMs or an entertainer who legitimately wants to investigate it (without the pressure of your friend and his referral code.) I urge you to read the details on the GgMs webpage on both client and entertainer side, as well as this post, before you make up your own mind for or against using it. Talk to friends who have used it. Please, above all else, keep in mind that this is one entertainer/clown/user’s opinion.

Upside for the clients. If you are a prospective client...

GigMasters offers a way to evaluate several entertainers for your needs at the same time. You can browse through the listed “press kits.” These often have photographs, and sometimes video samples of the entertainment. The entertainer has posted this on GgMs to convince you to take a hard look at her services. You get an overview of what people offer in your area for your audience or event type. There are some broad offerings in each category so you can investigate the different styles of those listed. Once you request a bid from an entertainer, your bid is distributed to all of the entertainers that meet your criteria on the form. This means that you may request a bid from one person, but if that entertainer does not respond, or is not available, GgMs casts a wide enough net, that someone else might respond with a competing bid. You also can make the deposit over the internet via secure connection with a credit card. Many entertainers still do not accept credit cards so this is a HUGE PLUS.

Once an entertainer submits a bid you have all of the provided contact information on that entertainer without a middle man. This is the best thing about GgMs. You can even decide whether or not you want to book that entertainer through GgMs. You can go to the bidder individually because you can call her or e-mail her.

You also have the opportunity to receive lower bids for the same service. In other words you can make your decision on price. If this is your goal I URGE YOU TO READ THE NEXT PARAGRAPH.

Downside for the client...

The big downside is this: you force entertainers and artists to compete with the lowest bid on very generic descriptions. Usually with criteria like “balloon twister” or “face painter” or “clown” GgMs provides you with bids from entertainers that identify themselves as matching this description.

What could possibly be the downside of that? Let’s imagine, for a moment, that you have a very expensive sports car. Maybe a Bugatti or a Porche or a Ferrari. Traditionally your would go to the dealer or ask around to get recommendations from other sports car owners for mechanics. You would not necessarily go to a service on-line and ask all auto mechanics to make a bid based merely on “auto mechanic” and “sports car” criteria. You have a very high performance vehicle that requires a specialist.

Let’s imagine for a moment that you are booking a balloon twister for a child’s birthday. The problem is that you are having this party in the D.C. region in July outdoors. Balloons are not necessarily a great option. The heat gets to them and they do not last more than a few minutes, particularly in hands of your children. But rather than bring this to your attention or offer other options, GgMs takes your criteria and submits a request for a bid to anyone who lists themselves under balloon twister. Rather than discern your needs, it encourages all of the twisters to submit the lowest bid and gain your business. Please let me ask you, do you want the lowest bidder who just wants the gig, or the more experienced artist who can make better recommendations?
Perhaps what you really need is an experienced children’s entertainer with the ability to evaluate your party and propose something that fits your needs better?

Let’s say you go with the lowest bidder. Maybe in this case it’s a kid who picked up a book at Borders and has a little hand pump and makes nothing but poodles and giraffes. OK you say? Fine with you? Maybe when the three year old starts to cry because the she is on her fifth poodle after all of the rest have popped in the heat, and the rest of the kids are equally as cranky, you might have a few regrets about going with the lowest bidder.

Now lets look at another side of the same problem. Let’s say the lowest bidder has many bookings through GgMs so she came at the top of the search engine. You have a country club and you want a clown for a big family friendly event. Maybe the bidder came with fifty great reviews. You think you’re golden so you go with the bid. Remember that the expectations of the other clients were set at the lower bid level.

So if the other performers come it at $250+ for your gig and this bid with so many great reviews is at less than half of that, you need to consider that the reviews might be based on a lower expectation. Doesn’t it make you wonder at all about the higher bids?

GgMs to its credit does give you all of the tools to contact the performer, evaluate them, interview them, and even ask for references. Please use those tools and check out ALL of the bids. You might be pleasantly surprised with a bid that you passed over because of the fee. You can talk to the entertainers and someone who would fit you really well might come down a bit.

There are also a couple of other drawbacks for potential clients. The entertainers who come up on your search are generally there based on the number of gigs that they have done through the service and their number of positive reviews. They are also ranked according to the dollars charged through the service. The formula works well unless a fraudulent and unethical person packs the process with phony bookings, and therefore, phony reviews. Ebay faces a similar problem. GgMs tries to police this practice, but the bad actors always find work-arounds. Please be careful and call. Trust your gut feelings in this case.

One way to spot this: please be aware of people who seem like they just have too many bookings in a very short period of time. A real professional will not use GigMasters exclusively because they have an established clientele. They probably also work with local agencies. Newbies will not have the same range outside of GgMs.

The best way guard against the bad actor is to look at videos, call the entertainer, and get a gut reaction. Sadly, references alone can not help. Just like the reviews, a bad actor can always put up a friend as a phony reference.

New members, and people like myself who have only a few GigMasters bookings should be more than willing to provide you with the numbers or e-mail addresses of three clients in the last month. The performer may need to have you wait a day so that she can get permission on the contact, but she should be happy to do so.

Another downside is that GgMs is only about the entertainers who have a membership. There are many very qualified and wonderful entertainers who never use it. I recommend searching a lot of different avenues. Nothing beats seeing someone you like at an event, getting their name and their card, and investigating from there.

The upside for the entertainer...

GgMs pays for search engine advertising that puts them near the top in Google rankings for variety entertainment and party entertainment. BIG HUGE PLUS. You receive the benefit of their advertising at a much lower fee than if you did it yourself.

The membership fee is not bad when you consider this important item: once you submit a bid you receive the qualified contact information without obligation to GgMs. In other words, your membership entitles you to the listing AND the qualified contact information after the bid. This is very different from other services that will not give you that information unless the client has already “booked” you or you pay a fee per lead. This means that you can manage the budget of your advertising against your gig, as opposed to pay and pray. This is VERY GOOD NEWS and one of the reasons that I stay with the service in spite of the competitive aspect of bidding.

By being able to contact the clients, I can not only determine what their accurate needs are, I can sort out someone who is looking for my style of entertainment from someone who is just looking for the lowest bid and doesn’t care about quality. After 27 years of doing this, I can tell you that I know already I am not everyone’s cup of tea. I don’t think I should be. I should reach as many people as possible, but someone who wants Rainbow T. Clown with the rainbow fright wig and the jumpsuit, probably doesn’t want Mandy playing her heart out making adults laugh along with the kids. That client might think “Who does Miss Fancy Pants think she is talking about her Cirque du Soleil training and her trip to Barcelona?” The fit would not be right. Someone who wants a Christian Clown reciting Bible verses will not be happy with me because I am not going to do that. (Nothing against it, but it is not my style. I know many good clowns who can do that and perform in a very funny way. I’d be happy to pass that information on to the client.)

The other upside is that you get more conscientious and serious clients who fully investigate your offering. If this is not a plus for you, you should look at whether or not you should call yourself a professional. I have received a lot of inquiries from people who see my listing on GgMs, request a bid, and then book me separately. Some people would just rather deal with me directly. Even though the fee is the same, some people just can’t stand it that a corporation is involved.

Now the Performer downside...

All of that training, your sweat, your experience, your hard work and you are forced to BID against people with half of the experience, very little training, no style or substance. ...and then they WIN??? What an Outrage!!!!! Yes and like it or not, that has been the way it has ALWAYS been. but now...

This service has just made that bad situation much worse.

GgMs is depressing fees across the board. It sucks. Sadly, we need to fight to assert ourselves even harder if we are truly committed to quality. How do you make people value your service as a clown? Be funny, be true to yourself, and try to educate the clients.

Look at it this way, think about the phenomenon of recorded music on the web. People now expect to pay next to nothing to download music, if anything. I guess most people think music is a very important part of life. Maybe they would not find life worth living without it. You would think they would value it right? Nope. They just don’t want to pay for it. The same phenomenon is coming over the web to event entertainment.

How many of us have been called at the last minute for gigs because clients thought we were just sitting around waiting to deliver--like Dominoes. This part is also getting worse. You will receive a lot of inquiries on the service for last minute gigs, with no flexibility, and probably a problem client to boot. ...All of this, and now you compete on price for a gig with nearly no details.

Those of us who work with a lot of local agents are comfortable with very few details about the gig, but not in the context of bidding.

The agent wants to get the highest fee for us, because in turn the agent fee is higher. The agent may not have all of the details but at least you will receive a good fee. The agents are motivated to get us the best price. In some cases, an event planner gets a lower fee out of us but promises us more hours or perks. GgMs is changing all of this, because now the event planners and the agents are bidding one the same gigs and against us.

If you are uncomfortable with bidding, or being lumped together in a big pot with everyone else, GgMs might not be right for you.

The conclusion...

Even with my personal reservations, I must admit that so far, the advantages have outweighed the disadvantages with GgMs. So far, it has put me in touch with clients who might not have found me through the usual Google search. Some of these clients will be with me for years to come. Through the engine they found me, in the contact process they heard me, and when I performed for them they liked me.

For the clients, look at everyone who bids, and use the contact information. If you look past the bid and truly discern your needs GgMs is great!

If you are one of those high pay Las Vegas magicians, a headliner comedian with an HBO special, or a clown with a lead in the latest Cirque production, you will laugh at this whole post and scratch your head. I’M NOT TALKING TO YOU GUYS. This is for the rest of us who still depend on the event industry. For those of us who are working events in the rest of the U.S. it is a tool for survival in the digital and social media age that you should use with caution and with concentrated effort.

Back from Barcelona! What a trip!

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 21:23:20 -0400

The funny thing is that I have been back for two weeks from Nouveau Clown Institute in Barcelona, and I am only just now making my first “clog” post. To say that I had a terrific time would be the understatement of the decade. My trip changed my life; so much so that I am now looking for a way to move to Barcelona permanently.

For the last couple of years, I felt a little trapped here in the states as a clown. The media concocted another fad or “meme.” Clowns are “scary.” Well yeah, if we’re good, we’re a little scary because we’re funny. In order to make people laugh you need to identify some kind of truth that might make people just a tad uncomfortable. That’s the clown’s job. The only way to get a laugh is to identify some kind of truth, or some kind of game. Some people here in the states have lost their sense of play--not everybody, of course. I also found myself pretty frustrated over the Balloon Twisting and the Face Painting. I love both, but not in the way most people expect. I use them as a vehicle for my theatrical work. (I hope this does not sound too pretentious.) Sadly, I have a lot of people book me that are not looking for a show, just someone to paint a doodle and twist a poodle. I’m good at both and so I understand, but I want to play.

When I went to Barcelona, I encountered a culture that believes a sense of play holds as much importance as their language Catalan. Laughing is as important as breathing. People commit to bringing their children to the theatre at a very young age. Parents do not talk on their cells at the top of their lungs while their kids watch the show--they experience the performance with their Palma, an extraordinary clown and student in white face.children. ...and get this--There are clowns JUST FOR ADULTS. That’s right. Clown performances belong to everyone.

My master teacher in Barcelona-Jango Edwards-says “Warning: Your smile is a weapon of mass construction!” This is what I am learning to do. Use my ability to create smiles and laughter to build a better world. In the next few days, I will add stories here about my time in Barcelona. I was too busy at the school to keep up with the “clog” but now that I have had time to process the experience, I look forward to sharing my thoughts about the school, about the teachers, about the students, and most of all, the place I call my other home, Barcelona. Join me again and I will introduce you to my new clown family!

Mandy to visit Barcelona

Sat, 2 Jan 2010 13:44:54 -0500

I can’t wait to get started with 2010. I am hitting the ground running with this latest blog entry. Back in November, I took a class with Master Clown Jango Edwards. He invited me to study at Nouveau Clown Institute in Barcelona, Spain. I will go in the middle of February and stay until the first week of April. While there I will be studying with some of the Master clowns of Europe. I plan to make regular blog entries about my studies. I may also post a few videos if I can figure out a way to participate in the class and shoot well simultaneously.

When I return I will hit the ground running by directing another original musical. This year I will once again take ten extraordinarily talented teens and create a comic extravaganza for the Prince George’s Children’s Theatre. The MNCPPC is receiving original musical submissions until January 7th 2010. E-mail me if you would like more information.

When I return, I also plan to experiment more with Man on the Street video. I have an exciting concept that will turn the idea of a talk show on its head. Check back soon!

A Review of My Birthday Party Work from Parent

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:19:06 -0500

I take a lot of bookings on my own, but I often work for agents and entertainment bureaus. One of the companies that I work for frequently, Jason Levinson and Company, sent me this review:

“Mandy was great. We had requested a clown that could juggle and make balloon animals, and she was perfect. She came 15 minutes early to set up, made some balloon animals while the guests arrived, did a very entertaining show that kept all the 5 year olds entertained and laughing the whole time, made some more balloon animals after the show, and then even stayed a few minutes over to make a few extra balloons in case some popped. She was just a lovely entertainer, and we would highly recommend her. We were also very satisfied with our experience with Jason Levinson & Co., who found an entertainer that exactly matched our request.”

-Michelle Z, 5/17/2009, Birthday Party - Adults, Vienna, VA

The Night Before Halloween - Update

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:27:01 -0400

This is a short video update. I know it has been a while since I posted so I wanted to keep everyone up to date on my whereabouts and antics. Most of the events that have taken up my time for the last month have all been private. Of course, I love having the work, and every party has been great, but it also means that I have had fewer public appearances.

This is where I can use your help. I would love to set up some public shows in the Washington Metropolitan Region during February and March of 2010. Many people call those months the winter doldrums. Perhaps your community, place of worship, school, or organization would like to sage a family event to break up the winter? Contact me at mandy@mandydalton.com if you have some ideas.

A lot of people have been asking me about my costumes lately. Most of my costumes are made by artist Zhenya Salazar in Bowie. Her web page is www.luzhina.com. I think you will be amazed if you visit the site.