Repeat clients, overexposure and boredom? How do you say no?

[Jim]

For those of us with shows that don't change much from year to year:

How do you deal with a client who wants to keep hiring you back year after year for mostly the same audience?

I usually try to skip a year or two between repeat gigs but there are several clients who keep wanting me back year after year. (That's great!) But the audience for those shows doesn't change much and I find the shows become difficult to do.

Aside from finding another act to trade off with (something I do often,) what do you say to a client that you love who keeps wanting you back? You obviously want the work and you want to please the client, but you know deep down that the show won't be as good as it was the first or second time.

Also, does anyone else have that deja vu experience of coming back to a venue once a year, on almost the same date, for multiple years? And you're in the same room with the same distinct smell and creaky floor? And then you launch into your show and you can't remember if it's your 4th or 5th time there. And you can't deliver lines because you KNOW you've done that joke on that stage before, but you can't remember if it was last year or earlier in the same show?

Maybe it's just me.

[Frisbee]

I have a few different finale tricks to pull out for repeat venues

I did a gig two years in a row, and during the show on the second year a kid shouts out...Hey I saw you do that last year...
I knew that the audience was filled with a lot of people who saw my show the previous year, but I knew the finale would be different at least.

I kept going along, doing the show as if it was the first time for this audience, and to a lot of them it was.

After the show a few people talked to me and said that they enjoyed the show last year and that is why they came back this year, to see me again. It was in a rural area and I do not think a lot of variety entertainers got thru that way, except for this one festival every year.

if 364 days passed since the last time you were there chances are they will not remember all of the show and all of the lines and I am sure that they will still enjoy the show.

Also how many people do you think have seen your show more than once...more than twice for that matter? I know when you did a lot of street in Boston and Harvard your core fans were mostly made up of locals.

[Doctor Eric]

Once a year, the same show, I don't see a problem. People like to be comfortable, they like to able to tell their friends to "watch this part", these folks I'm sure have enough going on in their lives that they've forgotten almost everything about your show except that you are in it (I'm assuming you sell your personality well, I've never seen you Jim, but I think that's a safe assumption). It sounds like your problem is more with your own stagnation than anything else. You're neuroticizing about something that you know doesn't really matter. Start working on a new act, you'll feel better.

[pablo]

Take out the trash.

I try to keep my show fresh & unique by:
1) dumping old material and adding new material as often as possible
2) refusing to use one-liners or jokes, and instead improvising on the audience response
3) doing or saying something that brings the show to a dead silent stop... pausing to let it sink in... then turning the show around 180 degrees and stomping on the accelerator

I did a 45-minute Family Night school show yesterday, I used all 3 methods, and by the end of the show half the audience was standing in front of the stage & screaming for an encore. For a few memorable minutes, I felt like Led Zeppelin back in the day.

"Hey hey mama, said the way you move
Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove..."

[Alicadabra]

Hiiiiii~~~~~
I'm new here. This is my first post.

I fell into Entertaining because I had to 'do my stuff' in front of an audience. Party Caricatures. I naturally just concentrated on making my pictures AND TALKING TO THE CROWD.

Gotta be good at my job. What should I do? I got some ideas, tried, telling jokes (what a joke that was). Got some good advice from a wonderful Entertainer (subwaysurfer605), and now I alternate between my quiet concentration (and yes you can watch) and Subway's ideas of Exaggeration, and that seems to be the best I can do. For now.

That 'Talking to the Crowd' that I mentioned - It's a natural way to Be. And since I don't know who's going to be there and what they're going to be like, even if 'my lines' were the same, the lines that I speak would not be. Just like I'm using the same words as I type here as I always use, but I never said exactly what I just said.

Alison

[Mr.Taxi Trix]

You guys have clients that ask you back AFTER seeing the show? Wow.

[Lee Nelson]

what alicadabra just wrote was one of the most refreshing things I have read in ages. It was inspiring in the sense that it instantly told me what i had been striving for for so long. I pretty much use lines and a routine but I am always trying to change the order so I am open to new possibilities and gifts from my audience.
ie, i let the people on any given day decide the shows order (whilst always being very aware of the ending and when to launch into my golden mile)
I think this is the key to being able to work the same audiences again and again, not on a year by year basis but on a day by day basis.
its only when you do it the same every time that it becomes boring or repetive for an audience, if you retain your air of unpredictability people will watch again and again for exactly the same reason, and for some reason they will refrain from yelling out your punchlines, theyll even donate ungodly amounts of times, baffling yet a nice thought!

So Alicadabra.........cheers
i hope your perception will help me again in other areas but if not thanks for your first post.

and yes taxi, some of us do get repeat calls, some of us just invite ourselves

[Alicadabra]

Hi DaisyandDerek ~

You recognized that I was REALLY TELLING you something. GFU!

That being said, my performance has NATURALLY evolved as I grow and learn both as a person and as an artist.

I've been reading the book "No Acting Please" by Eric Morris. Anybody here ever involved with anything like that?

Alison

[Magic Mickey]

Re: Take out the trash.

Pablo, you said:

"doing or saying something that brings the show to a dead silent stop... pausing to let it sink in... then turning the show around 180 degrees and stomping on the accelerator"

I'm note quite sure I under stand this. Could you expain how this would work. I can get you would want your show to be fast passed and you would want your audience to be on the edge of their seats so why would you want to stop and let their be long, silent, awkward pauses in your show?

Sorry. Would you just explain this to be agian.

[pablo]

Just press PAUSE.

An effective silent pause is not long or awkward, but just long enough to bait the audience's attention.

A good pregnant pause can hold more meaning in its silence - in the expectation of what's about to happen next - than any words, bells or whistles can convey.

A recent thread on p.net mourned the late great Richard Pryor, a master of silences and pauses who could scare the shit out of a crowd without saying a word. Steven Wright and Eric Bogosian are two other great performers who I've seen who use incredibly long pauses to keep their audience on the edge of their seats.

[Frisbee]

the pause that refreshes

Sometimes the pause has more meaning that the words you are saying...a pause can be a very powerful tool.

and it does allow you to change the direction or give them exactly what they are expecting and anticipating...

I heard somewhere once that the difference between an experienced comic and someone who is starting out is the length of their pause.

[Magic Mickey]

Thanks alot. I get it now. I didn't quite get it before but now I do. I do drama at my high school and I think the pause you are talking about is like what my drama teacher would call a beat that you would put in between two bits. Thanks for the explanation Pablo.

Mickey

[Marcus Wilson]

I understand what your saying Jim. I have performed at a elementary school every year for the past six years. That means last year the sixth graders had seen my show every year they have been in school. My show doesn’t go over nearly as well when a group has seen it six times especially when the group is all 12 years old except 2 teachers and me. Theirs nothing like a bunch of sixth graders yelling out get a new show. I think I handled it ok I ended up improvising and throwing in tricks that I wouldn’t normally do during a kids show. It turns out sixth graders like watching me stick things up my nose.

Now that I have said that I have two suggestions. First if it’s a company party or some other event where the same crowd is going to be there regardless of what the entertainment is. Just be up front explain to the client that you don’t think the show will go over as well as it has in the past because it will be the 6th time they have seen it. If they still want you take the money and don’t worry about it. Second if it’s a event like a festival. The people who are at your show are there because they want to be. If it’s the 6th time they’ve seen your show it means they liked it and want to see it again.

[jesus]

15 years and counting

I am headed off next month to the Arizona Renaissance Festival, an event I have performed at for the last 15 years. Over that time the basic structure of my show has remained the same.
I have die hard fans that come out every year to see my show. People that come up to me with young children and say "I've been watching your show every year since I was a kid." In fact there are people that will watch 2 or 3 times a day.
People watch movies more than once and the Wizard of Oz is on TV every year.
I know that when i see someone that has watched the show over and over it pushes me to come up with some new ad lib. Which is good because I don't ever write new things, I just keep close tabs on the new things that pop up and then keep them around for while and see if they work.
But with that said a festival is different from a corporate booking in that each year a festival will also draw a fair percentage of new people as opposed to a few new employees. I have done a company retreat in Minnesota twice with a year off in between and that was difficult.
Personally I would prefer to avoid working in front of the exact same crowd year after year and would try to explain that to the client. And if they still wanted me I would seek help on making a decision on P-net and probably only get rambling opinions that don't help much.