Gigs cancelled over ticket demands

Two comedy clubs have pulled gigs by Jerry Sadowitz – because he demanded ticket prices be more than doubled.

Manchester’s XS Malarkey and Crewe’s Limelight clubs are run as non-profit ventures with the ideal of offering affordable comedy.

But although Sadowitz had agreed to his fee, his agent demanded the venues raise their usual £4 entrance charge for non-members to £10 to reflect what he saw as his stature in the industry.

However, other big-name comics have played XS Malarkey, from Stewart Lee to Peter Kay, and none have made any such demands on ticket prices.

Promoter Toby Hadoke said: 'I'm disappointed that we had to pull what would have been a mutaully beneficial gig with an act I've long admired.

'Asking me to hike the prices 11 days before the gig, and then not returning phone calls as
promised, left me with no alternative but to pull the gig. I didn't want Jerry doing a gig he didn't want to do, but I make no apologies for refusing to up my prices.

'I'm not compromising the ethos of a club which has made acts like Stewart Lee, Mick Miller, Peter Kay and Chris Addison available to everyone for as little as possible. It seems to me the oddest reason to try to pull out of a gig, but there you go.'

A statement put out by the Limelight club said, similarly, that its ethos was to offer ‘great comedy at a great price and we felt that demands to charge people £10 were not in line with this goal’.

Published: 9 Mar 2006