The Trials and Tribulations of Promotion

I never wanted to be a promoter. ('I wanted to be a Lumberjack, leaping from tree to tree').

It's a stressful business that involves a lot of time and effort, and even then there's no guarantee that it will pay off. ('Hardest game in the world, promotion. 50 years, man and boy').

I can't stop thinking of dodgy outdated comedy clichés. Obviously I can't take this promotion lark very seriously, even though I've invested money that I can't afford to invest, and it feels like all of my spare time over the last fortnight has been spent either organising the event, or promoting it online (including setting up a blog), or driving around Bristol whacking posters up.

I've moaned about the chore of postering before, but since then the Croft received a letter from the council threatening them with a £5000 fine because three different illegal posters had been retrieved advertising their venue.

We were one of them.

The Croft contacted me and told me that although they were very pleased that we were making an effort with our promotion, they couldn't afford to pay that sort of money, so they have asked us to sign a disclaimer to say that they knew nothing about our illegal postering. A few days later the council chappy actually paid them a visit, and they managed to persuade him that they had nothing to do with the posters. He was happy to drop the fine, but warned that any future recovery of illegal posters would incur a £75 fine per poster.

Bev and I decided that, seeing as we haven't signed their disclaimer yet, and we already had 150 posters printed and ready to put out for Friday's event, we would just carry on and hope that we can sweet-talk our way out of any fine, should it be imposed.





We've also vowed not to bother with illegal postering in the future (much to my relief), and have already compiled a substantial list of legal poster sites, such as pubs, newsagents and fast food outlets.

So, if all goes according to plan, Friday night's event will be rammed full of punters, I'll be able to pay myself back the money I couldn't afford to invest, and we'll hear nothing more from the nasty people at Bristol City Council.

The worst-case scenario, however, simply isn't worth thinking about.