From the Desk of King in Miami
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As a promoter, I have learned to be honest. Honest with myself, honest with the owners, and honest with my guests. I do my best to be honest with my patrons, especially if I advertise a celebrity guest appearance, or giveaway or even something as simple as a drink special. This is very important because it shows your integrity and people respect you and your events more. As a promoter and patron, within the last year I have seen promoters take advantage of our community and people in general-here in Miami and elsewhere. Like I said earlier “I want you to come back…”, so I try to be on the up-and-up in all I do and be honest. For instance, last year there was a promoter who gave the illusion that a particular celebrity would be performing at a club, when in fact this particular celebrity, would only be doing a walk-thru and would be exiting the club. I don’t know if this was intentional, but many felt it was, but in the meantime charging outrageous prices and no celebrity performance happened. I am trying to be as generic as possible to prevent any hurt feelings, but if you have been following AndresFlava you know the situation I am referring too. But at the end of the day, everyone was pissed off, the promoter reputation tarnished, angry emails flying, and our community left feeling ripped off
I try my best to make sure I don’t conduct my promotions in such a manner. And what some promoters don’t realize and is that people remember that sh**. And I stress that to the Vault owners when I am promoting an event, because my name is attached to that. I don’t want my name attached to mediocrity or B.S. or any dishonest or misleading event. Another example, there is well known promoter in the D.C. area, who it seems, every time I read a blog or email about a scandal or event gone BUST, it seems his name is attached to it. I have some friends or associates who don’t go or attend any event just because his name is attached to it. And it all stems from all the scandals and botched celebrity appearances and B.S. that has happened in the past at his events. People remember! So I will continue to live by the phrase “I want you to come back…” I want you to remember my events as a good time, good value for your money, and I want you to come again to another one of my events. I won’t stand to have my name dragged thru the mud just for a quick buck.
As a promoter I deal with a lot of different personalities. I have come to learn how to work with them or work around them. It is a challenge. And lately it seems I have been constantly defending myself and actions and I have run into some sticky situations. For instance, I promoted a highly successful Carnival party last year at Vault. It was so successful, that this event is going to be expanded this year. You will hear about this more in a next couple of weeks. Get ready; it will be one of the wildest weekends ever! Back to the point. I got a couple of sponsors for give-a-ways to help me promote. In the interim of securing these sponsors, I found myself defending myself against other promoter’s actions. Case in point, I called a vendor to get some “adult” items and the first thing they said to me, “I hope you don’t operate like *BLANK*, because they are so unorganized and they want everything for FREE”. And I replied, “No, I don’t operate like that” and went on to explain how I operate and how I would create a win-win situation for the vendor and Vault and how I could help them. It was one the most awkward conversations I have ever had. Basically this vendor went on to vent to me ALL the dirt when dealing with this one particular promoter. They had been dealing with this person for a few years. In the back of my mind, all I could say is oh my god! That is why I try my best to be on the up-and-up when dealing with vendors and patrons. It’s not good, when someone has nothing but negative stuff to say about you and your organization, not good at all! People talk. And business people talk to other business people. Word gets around, and it gets around fast. Even though it was not professional for that vendor to dish the dirt, however it has made me very cautious when dealing with other businesses, vendors, and djs. I always try to meet my deadlines, my financial commitments, and be true to my word. When dealing with me, I want to make the experience as pleasant as possible, and I want you to work with me again in the future.
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