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Sunday, October 27, 2013

I Need Some Advice, Please Help Me

It's Me, The Writer of This Blog,  Dr. Donnell Harris
donnell_harris@hotmail.com


I just moved to Las Cruces from Tempe Arizona. I have always have been funny, have wanted to do standup. I found opportunity SWFF on Craigslist looking for entertainers.  I emailed them, and was totally transparent that I never had done professional standup before. but would love to do this. Joseph Thompson a representative of SWFF emailed me back and said I was booked for two nights the 25 and the 31. He said that I could choose between sponsorship packages or money for compensation
I had questions about details of the event, Joseph was terrible at responding to my emails, I repeatedly asked him about compensation and he never responded to that question .I began to doubt if the SWFF was even a real event or a scam
Just a few days before the event, after scouring the internet,  I found an SWFF website and Facebook page and was able to contact Philip Hernandez to answer some of my questions. I also asked him about compensation and he never replied to that question, only other questions I had.
Philip invited me to come down to the fairgrounds, the location of the event, a day or two before I came on so I could see things and that may answer my questions. I was unable to do this due to transportation issues. It is almost 10 miles outside of town.
My support and I drove down to the show an hour and a half early on the 25 and found Philip Hernandez. I brought up the issue of compensation and he told us that the issue was that every performer needed a “Federal Tax ID number” as well as “insurance signed off by the city and county.” No one had ever mentioned these rules to me before, even with all of our communication.
After some haggling, Philip told us that his normal rate of pay for entertainers was “30% of the total revenue that the entertainer brought in for the whole event.” He asked us for papers and information regarding performances in the past and what revenue I had brought to previous events.  Again I was never told any of this. We told Philip that we had been totally transparent through the process and that we had told his partner, Mr. Thompson that this would be my first professional show ever.
After more haggling, we arrived at an extremely low rate of $50 for the show. Philip decided that he could not even pay me this because of legal issues that I had no federal tax ID or insurance, once again two things that I was never told I needed.
My crew and I left the premises of the event disappointed, but knowing that we had stood up for the truth and believing that we were wronged. Any help or advice would be great.

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