Come Flyer With Me: Sanderson Jones
I am Sanderson Jones and I will be first comic to try to personally sell all tickets to an Edinburgh show by hand. There are no internet sales, no phone sales, no venue sales. Just me.
There are three key reasons for this project:
1) Each show should have special atmosphere if I’ve met everyone before.
2) With a bit of time, and an internet connection, I might be able to customize it to the audience.
3) It will turn out to be far more work than I had imagined, cause me to regret starting it by the end of the festival and eventually hate myself for, at the age of thirty, still refusing to acknowledge that my abilities do not match my ambitions.
The ticket selling idea behind ComedySale.Com/Fringe idea came to me at last year’s Fringe, when I was the only stand-up to sell tickets on the street. Getting my hands dirty like that might surprise some punters, who think stand-up is something that happens on the TV, where big stars have their names in huge lights, introduced by that guy who loves skipping and can’t believe what men keep in their drawers. That is not how it is at the bottom of the food chain. In fact, I do myself an injustice: I am a mackerel’s crap above the bottom feeders.
No, the Fringe is nothing but a low level street war. Each comic desperately trying to persuade the bovine punters into their own abattoir, with the guarantee that they kill every night. Last year, selling tickets on the street was my edge.
So, let me to take you through the patter of THE FRINGE’S BEST FLYERER (self-awarded). A favourite is my reaction to their availability.
Me: “Are you free at 9.20 tonight?”
Them: “Yes”
Me: “Really, you’re not just saying that. You definitely want to come?”
Them: “Yeah, of course. Where’s the box office?”
They are yours now, Jones, sales ninja. The poor saps have looked you square in the eye. Square in the desperate peeper of the “up and coming stand-up” - up and coming through the storm drain of shit that is the comedy industry - and said they want to buy tickets to your show. They don’t know I have tickets on me, and they will soon have a choice: are they ticket buyers? Or blatant liars?
“But who wants to go to the box office?” say I. “Sure, the tickets are great value but you’re wise enough to know there’s more to life than money.” Oh, yeah, like hell there is. I want the money in your pocket to be the money in my pocket, rube.
“What is more important is time drinking beer in the sun with Anna and Hannah.”. Yes, I've remembered your names because I care. “Now, imagine how great life would be!”, give them the eyes, shake the beard. “And imagine how wonderful the universe!” Spread the arms wide, and spread their minds, you magnificent sales beast. “If the tickets to the shows you wanted to see, came to you!”.
My hands rush in, their gaze follows, and as the back of my right mitt cracks resoundingly upon the open palm of my left, the concealed book of tickets slides from the sleeve and, for that one moment, I hold the centre of their world in the palm of my hand.
“We’ll have four, please”.
“Yes. Yes you will”.
Obviously, each sales opportunity didn’t go as smoothly as that, but enough did. My favourite response was from a customer who couldn't understand why my ticket was in his hand and his money in mine. He said “I feel like I’ve been Derren Browned”.
Getting the patter out will be fun but, mostly, I’m looking forward to spending a month chatting to Fringe-going folk, from all over the world, keen for something a bit unusual. The punters who are really willing to take a punt. The show is on at 9.20pm in the Caves. If you want a ticket email me through my contact page or tweet me . Alternatively, I'll be in the Pleasance Courtyard from 13.00-17.00, and also in the bar of The Caves from 19.10-19.30. The Skinny have asked me to keep you readers informed of my personal sales quest. I hope my quixotic commercialism leads to unexpected fun, and unlikely meetings. It better. I am, after all, hoping to do a show about it.