I spoke to the DJ/sound engineer and, as he couldn't get his system to work properly, I said I would put my system in and use it for the evening. Despite the initial problems he eventually got his to work.
So far, so good.
I started to get ready and the boys (!) arrived just as I was due to go on. Hurriedly I told the first guy he would be onstage at 9pm and to get ready.
This was when the disagreements started. He said he wanted to go on at 9.20. That would have meant a 20 minute gap between when I finished my first spot and when he came on. I put my foot down and insisted he was ready to go on at 9pm.
He wasn't!
At 9pm he was still faffing around in the dressing room. I walked off the stage and asked for his music. He didn't have any! He had assumed that the DJ would have some. I said 'I am the DJ!' Eventually he went out on stage having picked a girl out of the audience before he even started and did exactly 5 minutes of apathetic gyrating before walking off the stage.
Back in the dressing room I warned him that the organiser would be very unhappy with that performance. He should have done 15-20 minutes, full monty and tied up. His response was that that was all he usually did. Well, if that were true he would never be working.
In the second half his co-conspirator did exactly the same thing.
I managed to 'save' the evening by coming up with a third spot right at the end, solely so that the event ended on a high.
The event organiser was livid with them. To my mind they were the most unprepared, amateur charlatans I have every come across. I don't know how little, if anything, the organiser paid them but it was too much. Fortunately, for me, I had nothing to do with booking them and the agency that supplied them, Fantasy Strippers of Newcastle, should be ashamed of themselves.
