When will people ever realize that bills can’t be paid with the promise of “exposure”? Another day, another creative professional gets rightfully offended by corporate entities offering publicity in lieu of actual money. Go ahead, try asking a doctor if he/she would be okay with a shout-out on a newsletter instead of dollars in payment for your surgery.
Presumably not her first rodeo dealing with event organizers trying to weasel out of paying, local musician Amanda Tee must have been miffed enough this time to air her grievances publicly on Facebook. Approached by someone from Invade Industry — the company that organized the severely overhyped Artbox Singapore — Tee was invited to perform an hour-long live music session at upcoming Orchard Road carnival Flashbang in December.
The catch? Tee was offered mere “maximum branding exposure” on social media, and the oh-so-generous allowance of keeping gratuities from members of the public. To add further salt to the wound, the Invade representative even boasted being awarded a generous grant from the Singapore Tourism Board and having generated $20 million during Artbox Singapore.
Although in our opinion, the biggest offense the representative made was the genuine usage of the word “synergy” in the email. *shudder*
Though we’d expect this slimy stunt from any other cold, corporate entity, the offer to compensate performers with exposure really shouldn’t be coming from people organizing an event that proclaims to be a “creative retail playground” expected to be filled with actual creative professionals.
Since Tee shot back at the organizers, a marketing manager for Invade Industry promptly issued an apology, assuring that they’re in the process of working out “a feasible compensation model” for performing artists.
“We are in the process of reaching out to all performers whom we have contacted to clarify this outreach and are looking for inputs on how to best create a platform to give young talents a stage and at the same time work within reasonable budgets,” the manager wrote to Tee. A bit too late to fix things, really, considering how Invade’s initial email (presumably sent en masse) might have already rubbed a lot of creative professionals the wrong way.
Since Tee’s email went viral on social media, Invade put out a sheepish post of its own on its Facebook page.
Anyway, if the plight of struggling homegrown musicians mean nothing to you, Flashbang is on from Dec. 9 to 30 at the open-air carpark behind 313 @ Somerset. If you do drop by the surely overcrowded carnival, make sure you actually support local creatives with your money instead of “maximum exposure.”
