Hosting a show and the bar staff doesn't have your back.

[candupstomic]

Hosted a nightmare show at a sports bar last night. Drunk asshole was overserved, sexually harassed my 5 lady comics at my all female show before they even hit the stage and then proceeded to heckle me during my hosting set.

My counter is to take a nice guy approach and say "I really hope you're having fun tonight". Usually people realize they were being assholes after that and chill but an overserved (and undersexed) patron is out of control and they have crazy misconceptions about stand up and the amount of 'pussy'(forgive my crudeness, that's from drunkie's POV, not mine) it gets you and thinks he's contributing to the show and the reward in 'pussy' will be great. Even though these women traveled 60 miles to play my room and will be going to my house after the show to smoke a joint and listen to vinyl before they drive home, not fuck some misogynist drunk.

I then threatened him with telling the bartender to cut him off, but he had a pitcher in front of him and he was already overserved. I got him to be quiet by ignoring the troll and using a little "frown power", which is to stop the show and visibly frown at drunk patron, thus making everyone at the table ashamed to be sitting with drunkie. That only got me through my opening hosting set.

I brought up the first girl, an eccentric that isn't quite as weird as Bamford, but is so new that she hasn't made her weirdness work to it's full potential, but she has awesome moments of brilliance. Heckler is not TOO bad, but has a few things to say, I tell the bartender something needs to be done, bartender has a few words with drunkie, goes back to the bar and moments later drunkie makes the statement "Mexicans are the new n***ers". Loudly. Homegirl told the dude to plain "SHUT THE FUCK UP"-applause break-. The bartender says she didn't hear it.

When she's done I bring lady 2. Some material about her mother and she points out that my mom is sitting in the suicide table. Oh yeah, did I mention my HISPANIC MOM is there??? Drunkie makes a comment to the effect of "I'll fuck his mother" while looking at my mom. I'm livid. Fortunately, another bartender(not the one that was 'hard of hearing') talked this patron into going to the smoking area. Unfortunately, this bar pays me a lot of money to put on shows there and so I'm not in a position to make this drunk apologize(nor is that something I typically do).

Dude came back in and couldn't even sit at the farthest spot away from the stage at the bar without misbehaving. The bartender called him a cab and he remained inside. He said something to my feature act(and very close friend) that was extremely disrespectful while on stage and I finally circumvented the bartender and told him leave and followed him out the door and the bartender followed me. I then brought up the headliner and the rest of the show went great beyond the energy drainage of the whole dealing with drunkie ordeal, leaving the headliner with a set that I could have been way better received, had that asshole not ruined the night.

It's all good, I have a show in a cannabis cafe tomorrow and those folks are way to passive to even answer a question...

I guess why I'm posting this is, if you are hosting a one nighter, have a talk with the bartender before the show. Tell them you need them to have your back. That guy should have been 86ed the second he dropped an N bomb. The bartender should have taken my word when I informed them of his extreme trespass.

I wanted to threaten the bartenders with calling them in for overserving if they didn't 86 him on the spot, but I feel that will just jeopardize my show. Oh and I heard snitching is something that is not cool. Instead, I got a few customers to ask the bartenders if they thought they had overserved the guy. That's when the bartenders seemed a little more likely to help.

How would you have handled this differently?

tl;dr Drunk asshole at all-female comedy did some pretty low class heckling and I did not have the bar staff backing me up 100%. I eventually took matters into my own hands and peacefully removed him after the final straw.

[Osquip]

For the past two weeks, some friends and I went around the South doing one nighters. We did a show in Kentucky and had a whole table of way over-served hillbillies sitting right up front. They got there two hours prior to the showtime and started pounding beers and shots. It was a good venue with a packed audience. The show started out great but as the show progressed, they got more drunk/loud/obnoxious. The thing that sucked the most is that they weren't heckling necessarily, just drunk and oblivious to what was happening. They would say stuff like, "You get that text from Billy?" or the really drunk girl would sing songs to herself. So when I was trying to talk to them, they just wouldn't respond to anything. The host was nice and funny as were the other locals, but he didn't really try to do anything to get them to leave or be quiet. Not that anything would have gotten them to be quiet after being so over-served. I think he didn't because that bar was 100% on the side of whoever is buying drinks. As soon as they were gone, the rest of the show went great. Also, the drunks must have complained as they left because then the host told us that the bartender was not happy with us and told him to "make sure those comics pay their tab before they leave." Luckily, they still paid us what they were supposed to. I thought it was really ridiculous how the bar handled that especially since it was such a great venue. The drunks/bartender made what should have been one of the best nights of our tour in to one of the worst.

[ErikNielsen]

Are you the host or the booker? If you're the booker, I hate to say it, but you may have to either talk it out with management or find a new venue. Explain to them that this guy's actions largely ruined the show, and that jeopardizes both future attendance and the quality of future lineups. Emphasize that you're not blaming them, because this wasn't talked out in advance, but that now it does need to be figured out -- that this show made it clear that a policy was necessary.

[drieux]

It's surprising that they would pay you a decent amount of money to put on the show, then not care when somebody is actively ruining the show. If their intention is to create a regular weekly (or monthly) event to draw in patrons, the two things that help squash that real quick are bad lineups and shows OR allowing drunks to ruin it because they're buying drinks.

Erik is right in that you should discuss it with the bar, but approach it as a "we're working together to make this better" conversation, as opposed to a "your bartenders let my show get ruined" conversation. It's a business relationship, you both want to make the shows something that people will think of as a regular and quality entertainment option. That way they can see it in terms of medium-to-large-size audiences showing up frequently to buy 3-4 drinks at a time, not one night where one guy spent $150 on whiskey and beer and made the joint look like a dive for alcoholics.

The other situation that comes up occasionally is that a bar just tends to be more rowdy and talkative, but that's something that comes on a case-by-case basis and I've found isn't usually mean-spirited or just purely fueled by liquor, it just somehow IS that way. But it sounds like you were dealing with an angry, attention-starved boozebag who saw a group of people getting onstage with their thoughts to share them with others and he thought, "me too, except I'm not leaving this stool, blaaarrrggghhhhfffflllbbb, racial slur."

[candupstomic]

Are you the host or the booker?

I'm both. I put on 2 showcases and 1 emcee, feature and headliner type show with a cover every month. I have a business partner/fellow comic and we take turns hosting the room and keeping the extra money after the bar pays us.

[candupstomic]

It's surprising that they would pay you a decent amount of money to put on the show, then not care when somebody is actively ruining the show.

Bar owners weren't there, bar-staff apparently only cares about their tips.

[drieux]

Again, if the bar owners care enough to fork over decent loot to provide entertainment, they'll likely have an interest in keeping their bar as a viable venue destination for regular people and not just a shithole for losers to hang out in. Alcoholics go broke or die, and shitty bartenders who overserve and "buyback" drinks for their tipping regulars tend to move on often, as they only really care about themselves and will eventually get into a bickering match with management about something. Make it clear to management that your goal is to create a solid show on a regular basis to bring in customers who will build the reputation of the show AND venue, and that will sound better than a future with crappy people serving too much cheap bourbon to burned-out Bukowski wannabes.

If it turns out they don't care and just somehow have money they're willing to throw at a show for a while before going back to being the kind of place where you can hear country music while sitting next to a guy who - somehow, magically - has had terrible luck at every job and relationship in his entire life at 11am on a Wednesday, then it's time to move on to another venue.

[candupstomic]

I honestly think this bar is on it's way out. They are lowering prices, suggested I charge a cover on a showcase where nobody is doing more than 10-15 and are triple booking nights with poker and karaoke(karaoke after the comedy show). I book a bunch of shows and I try to go for bars that just opened because they are willing to help pay for promotions and do a lot of promotions anyway that they can throw us on. Unfortunately, the bar just isn't becoming a destination outside of the comedy and concerts I book there and some creepy meatmarket bar dating game crap.

I'm pretty sure the bar owners had a previously failed coffee shop because I pulled their docs as I do with every venue before I work with them.

I wonder if any sort of contract wording could be used to address this. I already use a plain english contract that states the terms of our deal, perhaps adding a host can 86 a patron or that a bartender has to do a hosts bidding, though drieux is right, I should move on and find another venue. But every show is not always filled with problem patrons.

[Phil]

How would you have handled this differently?

Shorter post.