Words by Ted Goslin
It’s generally understood that as musicians, we are required to work with/adhere to certain requests from clients and sometimes go to backbreaking lengths to appease their sensitive personalities. Some requests are reasonable, but others should be left to us, the experts, to decide. Case in point, what does one do in that (hopefully) rare situation when the client’s request is not only off from a recommendation, but detrimental to the player’s ability to provide the best possible performance?
Example 1: I once performed for a client who was having a backyard cocktail party for around 50 guests in the early evening. He asked me to set up on the grass area on the side of the house. The cocktail area, where most of the guests would end up migrating, was towards the back of the house, around 150 feet away from my performance area. The client assured me, since there were some cocktail tables in front of me (the nearest being 20 feet away), that guests would get their drink from the bar and head over to my side to listen to music and mingle. That never happened.
Part way through the gig, he came by asking me to turn up the volume on my P.A. since most guests couldn’t hear me, being that they were on the other side of the house. I said I could move closer but he said it would be too loud. I said I could play softer, but he insisted I stay put and simply increase the volume. Not knowing how loud to go, I increased a few notches but didn’t go to the max. He soon came back, and instead of asking me for another volume raise, he walked up to my amp and turned the volume up to max himself. Needless to say, this had never happened prior and hasn’t happened since, but could have been avoided had the client listened to my recommendation initially, or at least chosen to be less of a control freak and let the expert handle it.
Example 2: A Panist was asked to perform at a mall as part of a summer performance schedule. The contract had him scheduled for several dates. He arrived to his first date on time, set up where the entertainment director said, performed with enthusiasm, receiving compliments as he usually did, finished and went home.
Within a week he received a call from the director telling him he they refused to pay him for this and would cancel his future performances because he had his back turned to the audience the whole time and performed with little enthusiasm or showmanship the whole time.
It turns out, when he arrived he was told to face a certain direction, questioned it because it seems wrong, but ultimately agreed because that’s what he was told by the person in charge. As for the lack of showmanship, it turns out that coordinator saw him with his back turned thinking he was deliberately being disrespectful and took that as a sign he wasn’t trying, a.k.a. being a Jim Morrison type.
Summation: If you are hired to play a party for a difficult client, who refuses to listen to you, continue to insist, citing the potential for disaster. If they still insist, do what they want and take note of them in case you get a call back for another date. If they’re really bad, like the man in Example 1, feel free to fire them as a client. There’s no need to let a client potentially hurt your business by damaging equipment, disrespecting you in front of potential clients or possibly leaving bad reviews on your social media pages. Some gigs just aren’t worth it.
If you have had a similar experience or have a solution to this issue, feel free to leave a comment below or contact us at ted@pan-mag.com.
