Haven't gigged at all since I moved down here in January, but that's mainly because I didn't want to get back into it until I found a full-time job and that didn't happen until last month!

I looked up a load of venues in south west London that were fairly local to me, but since I resolutely refuse to encourage bring-a-buddy or pay-to-play, about 75% of them were instantly ruled out.

Out of the rest (about half a dozen), one third of the nights had closed, and the other two never got back to me.

I know I need to try harder to get gigs sorted, but a lot of London nights seem to have the aforementioned conditions attached. Which sucks, and is bad for the comedy industry as a whole.

Quote: The Man in the Bowler Hat @ August 9 2011, 1:40 PM BST

DON'T DO PAY TO PLAY. Here's a great explanation of why from someone far more eloquent than I. http://www.pearshapedcomedy.com/CRAPP.htm

Also, with the number of gigs that there are that are free why would anyone pay to play?

Comedy bin gigs vary from very good to playing to 10 other acts. They are bringer gigs but they are free.

Laughtershock, can be a bit variable in terms of audience numbers but is not a "bringer" or a P2P.

Try also, Comedy Virgins (bringer), Comedy Slappers (bringer), TNT (bringer), 5 minutes of fame (bringer), Pear Shaped (not P2P or bringer) or any one of hundreds of others.

I don't particularly like "bringer" gigs but the majority of London open mic gigs are and I'm prepared to bring a friend, I'm not prepared to pay for the pleasure of entertaining other people though.

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Thanks for the plug. The CRAPP page came out of a series of campaigns by myself and other promoters and acts to confront promoters who use open spots as sub-minimum wage labour. The campaigns run over the years have been mildly successful.

Obviously not in eliminating pay to play and bringers (that would be impossible as if there's money to be made out of any dodgy activity someone will find arguments to morally justify it) but they certainly have been successful in preventing bringer and pay to play style booking policies from crossing from the open mike circuit to the professional circuit. There are no gigs in London that I am aware of where both the acts (or their "mates") pay in cash to play. This is not an accident. And not for want of professional promoters trying.
At least 3 professional promoters have been forced into booking policy u-turns by the CRAPP campaign. And it was heartening to see the Funny Women organisation's experiments with pay to play exploding so dramatically in their faces without any help from us.

Critics of the CRAPP have accused me of trying to "police" the comedy circuit. However, this is a ludicrous accusation - it is not possible for any individual to police the whole of the comedy circuit ....but that does not mean that the circuit cannot be in some ways self-policing. For example jokes theft is widely condemned as a recognised form of stealing other people's labour. Pay-to-play and bringer scams are simply the promotional equivalent of the same thing. They are ways of stealing labour. The aim of the campaign and page was and is to create a stigma for these practices and put on one page the arguments we were bored with repeating on average every 18 months when the situation moved from the absurd to the farcically unsustainable. Promoters of these schemes have all the time in the world to think up new nonsense to try and legitimise them with so we thought, as we are in comedy, it would be fun to have at least one page with which to try and drain at least a small proportion of the ocean of vapid drivel.

The other function of the page is to try to define what is and what is not a promotional scam in order to focus the legitimate discontent caused on those responsible for causing it ....instead of what used to happen ...huge unfocused public rows in which innocent people got hurt due to unwarranted guilt-by-association nonsense and so forth.

As to the Comedy Bin I believe they have dropped their "must bring a mate" policy at many of their venues now following the inevitable backlash... but this is hearsay. I no longer gig for them since someone with a voice pattern approximate to their proprietor rang up the Fitzroy Tavern claiming to be an investigative reporter from BBC investigating my "corrupt practices" who wouldn't give their name and then suddenly hung up. Of course it's difficult to know who the caller really was because when we dialed 1471 the number was withheld. But anyway I believe Jay has backed down on his bringer scheme which he waited until he was booking 7 venues to try to implement by force but I may be wrong. But that's what I heard.

When I started out such nonsense did not exist as there was not the technology to do it. Instead there was other nonsense to deal with. Would I bring mates if I was starting today? Probably not. However, I would point out that many of these gigs you can probably just get on at if you turn up anyway so ...erm ...I'd do that. You can get on at lot of these type of gigs by just turning up as the drop out and no show rates for open spots are high ...which is why we end up with very long waiting times for a spot. At Pear Shaped we usually have one or two spots going for anyone turning up on spec if you get there at 7:30 and if we can't get you on we can let you know by 8:30. However, if you want a proper gig email Brian. He does try to get back to everybody but the quantity of admin is such that this is not always possible ...in which case email again. The address is on the website.

So anyway bring people to bringers if you must but don't complain in 5 years when clubs like mine don't exist because someone has persuaded the brewery that my old fashioned methods of selling tickets to people who might actually want them are silly compared to the new exiting methods of herding unwilling open spots "mates" into small rooms for cash. I have to negotiate with my landlord too and no promoter is an island. I don't want to put anyone off bringing mates if they genuinely want to but you should think of the wider long term consequences of allowing yourselves to be leaned on to bring mates. Eventually if it became standard practice the non-bringer clubs like mine would have to go bringer too to compete which is one reason we ran the campaign. Call me old fashioned but I dislike being undercut in this way.

If you are interested in closing the gaps in NMW law that allow such schemes to operate it doesn't hurt to write to your MP or to the Low Pay Commission. Probably a pointless exercise but if you don't speak no one will ever hear. Of course closing legal loopholes wouldn't stop anyone running them because NMW law and so forth are near impossible to enforce but the stigma associated with being accused of breaching NMW rules its self has reduced the number of people prepared to go there...

How does Comedy Bin make money? The gigs I've done with them didn't charge a ticket?

Surely the pubs don't pay to have a stage full of amateur comics?

nb having not gigged for a while I was surprised by the degree of agression I've seen towards the audience. What's that all about?

You'd think the pub puts up any money required to get more punters in, and CB make no money... unless they get a cut of the takings from the bar.

Aggresson towards the audience, or from it?

Towards it. I mean I can understand if you're being heckled, but peole just going to the loo or chatting (in the back of the bar)

thats just rude

Quote: sootyj @ August 30 2011, 12:11 AM BST

How does Comedy Bin make money? The gigs I've done with them didn't charge a ticket?

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Many pubs and chains have what is called an "entertainment budget" or are prepared to put up money to run events that bring in extra custom.
The answer to your question is the venue puts up the money and Jay splits this with the resident MC. Jay has to pay at least the MC otherwise there would be the danger they might nick the room off him.
I don't know what the budget would be for any of Jay's gigs but the old unlamented Purple Turtle which ran along the same lines used to have a budget of about £50 a week for the MC which they more than recouped in increased beer sales. It probably varies from venue to venue. Personally I wouldn't want to MC a gig where all the acts are opens and there are up to 25 of them in one night so the MCs must really earn their money.

In return Jay manages the bookings, admin and publicity ...many low budget gigs work like this and they do have a function in being an entry point onto the circuit. For example The Theatre Royal Bar Stratford, and quite a few out of town gigs and arts centre gigs all operate along these lines. Some of them pay quite well. Personally I'd rather have a gig where there's no bung off the landlord and the punters all want to be there. The problem with free entry gigs is it is harder to throw out drunk troublemakers. Then again dodgy mike in a public bar gigs can pay quite reasonably. I'm prepared to be shouted at mid-week by drunks if it adds to my cash ISA. There are, of course, also professional gigs that are part finance by the landlord and part financed by ticket sales. It's not the free entry principle that the CRAPP objects to but simply the idea of leaning on people to bring mates on top of doing free spots.

At the point at which we started the page the situation was so out of control that one promoter was asking acts to bring 2 people at £6.50 each with at least 20 acts on. An guarenteed income of £260 a week or £13520 a year entirely generated through bullying other people to work for less than nothing.

If you're really fed up with dodgy promoters the ultimate solution is start your own gig. Of course you may have no idea what you're doing and not be funny enough for it to work but if Brian Damage had let little things like lack of jokes or punters stop him we wouldn't have been going 11 years at the Fitzroy Tavern and 4 before that at the Oval.

Personally, I don't see the harm in bringers unless you're charging acts and/or guests. I haven't run one myself but I don't begrudge those who do. When I started out most of the gigs I played involved having to bring a person along and I was grateful for it - it's hard enough getting an audience to come and watch decent comics let alone a bunch of semi-incompetents. I consider it a rite of passage - you eventually outgrow the bringers as you rise up the comedy totem.

Bringers are not "rite of passage" and do not have to be. The London circuit managed for decades without them and most acts of my generation have never done a bringer. Bringers are just the unfunny trying to make money out of your ambition. "rites of passage" are for public schoolboys - grown ups don't eat dogpoo without complaining about it and kid themselves this is some form of social bonding. It isn't - you're just being screwed. The reason bringer promoters gave up on charging people directly in order to go for the book-as-many-people-and-lean-on-them-to-bring-as-many-mates-as-possible for free system is that it actually makes more money than many directly charging schemes and directly charging makes the con too obvious. Of course eventually the mid-range and semi-pro acts won't ware it so you have to invent a two tier system where you have one booking policy for established acts and lean the hardest on the newest and most naive. So many people run systems that can be cloaked and pick only on the weakest ...the trouble is that those people grow up.

I don't see the harm in people bringing mates if they genuinely want to bring their mates and many do. This has always been part of the turnover of open mike nights but after a decade of running an open mike night I have to say that usually this and return custom allows us enough of an audience to run - industrialising the process is just dehumanising people. What starts as someone doing someone else a favour turns into a requirement and the requirements then expand and expand into bring at least 3 people and ask 100 facebook friends.... yes, I really have seen emails like that. Bring one person is never enough. Once you ask someone to bring two then of course they burn through their "mates" faster and it spirals and spirals till the whole thing is a nonsensical farce. All these systems are ultimately unsustainable as eventually the promoter has to go public with his increasingly desperate demands and makes an idiot of himself ...as he does so less and less people with any sense will do his gig ...it's a vicious cycle.

And if you're an act and you operate your gig in this way the people you screw over will hold it against you further down the line when they themselves become bookers. Comedy Virgins etc can get away with it because ...well, they're just in it for the cash. But if your aim in comedy is to get booked by people you don't know then ...well, if you're antisocial to other people ...well, you'll find that favour returned. Many people have seriously damaged their careers by enganging in these practices but you can make it work financially. If your aim is to make £50 a week by bullying people into pub rooms then go for it. It can be done. But that'll be the limit of what you ever achieve.

But sorry no ...even free entry bringers aren't innocent. Bring mates if you want, do bringers if you have to but if you bring mates to them who you didn't honestly want to drag along you are feeding the tapeworm. Of course it's the downside of the greater professionalisation of the circuit but if you think doing these gigs unquestioningly is not lining your own coffin you are fooling yourself and if you think professional promoters aren't watching these gigs and thinking what-can-I-get-away-with? you're fooling yourself too. See I'm repeating myself again. This is why there is a page. Got bored of it.

Quote: Anthony Miller @ August 30 2011, 9:27 AM BST

Bringers are not "rite of passage" and do not have to be. The London circuit managed for decades without them and most acts of my generation have never done a bringer. Bringers are just the unfunny trying to make money out of your ambition. "rites of passage" are for public schoolboys - grown ups don't eat dogpoo without complaining about it and kid themselves this is some form of social bonding. It isn't - you're just being screwed. The reason bringer promoters gave up on charging people directly in order to go for the book-as-many-people-and-lean-on-them-to-bring-as-many-mates-as-possible for free system is that it actually makes more money than many directly charging schemes and directly charging makes the con too obvious. Of course eventually the mid-range and semi-pro acts won't ware it so you have to invent a two tier system where you have one booking policy for established acts and lean the hardest on the newest and most naive. So many people run systems that can be cloaked and pick only on the weakest ...the trouble is that those people grow up.

I don't see the harm in people bringing mates if they genuinely want to bring their mates and many do. This has always been part of the turnover of open mike nights but after a decade of running an open mike night I have to say that usually this and return custom allows us enough of an audience to run - industrialising the process is just dehumanising people. What starts as someone doing someone else a favour turns into a requirement and the requirements then expand and expand into bring at least 3 people and ask 100 facebook friends.... yes, I really have seen emails like that. Bring one person is never enough. Once you ask someone to bring two then of course they burn through their "mates" faster and it spirals and spirals till the whole thing is a nonsensical farce. All these systems are ultimately unsustainable as eventually the promoter has to go public with his increasingly desperate demands and makes an idiot of himself ...as he does so less and less people with any sense will do his gig ...it's a vicious cycle.

And if you're an act and you operate your gig in this way the people you screw over will hold it against you further down the line when they themselves become bookers. Comedy Virgins etc can get away with it because ...well, they're just in it for the cash. But if your aim in comedy is to get booked by people you don't know then ...well, if you're antisocial to other people ...well, you'll find that favour returned. Many people have seriously damaged their careers by enganging in these practices but you can make it work financially. If your aim is to make £50 a week by bullying people into pub rooms then go for it. It can be done. But that'll be the limit of what you ever achieve.

But sorry no ...even free entry bringers aren't innocent. Bring mates if you want, do bringers if you have to but if you bring mates to them who you didn't honestly want to drag along you are feeding the tapeworm. Of course it's the downside of the greater professionalisation of the circuit but if you think doing these gigs unquestioningly is not lining your own coffin you are fooling yourself and if you think professional promoters aren't watching these gigs and thinking what-can-I-get-away-with? you're fooling yourself too. See I'm repeating myself again. This is why there is a page. Got bored of it.

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Not everyone thinks "bringers" are antisocial - to many they're the absolute opposite.

Let's say a guy decides to start a night showcasing new comics, books a room in a pub (with no money changing hands) and puts on a bunch of open-mics. Maybe he's doing it because he wants to learn some MC skills, maybe he's just the kind of person who wants to give new talent a leg up (those people do exist!). He runs it a couple of weeks and the numbers are terrible. Now he's in danger of losing the venue. What's more, he's got a bunch of comics playing to a largely empty space, which is no fun for anyone. He's tries to promote the evening every which way but there's just so much competition out there. He decides, given that he's not making a profit out of this venture, to ask acts to help him bolster the numbers and make the evening more enjoyable for everyone, and they do so. Maybe it's a bit of a ball-ache for that comic to have to ask their friends to watch them play or perhaps their friends are happy to come along and support their mate in realising their ambition of being a comedian. Either way they show up and, maybe, just maybe, have a good time for zero cost.

Tell me, how is the guy running this gig "lining his own coffin"?

Aah Bussell the cool voice of reason.

When I last gigged a few years ago open mics were often utterly miserable. The only people interested were comics, so it was frequently a case of playing to 10 other comics. In fact quite often regulars would piss off to the other bar.

There's a real arrogance that you're a draw before you hit maybe 50 gigs (and even then its chancy I could jog 50 times and I'd still move slower than treacle rolling up hill).

To give a comparison I go to LCW for script readings. The rule is I think you need to go for 6 meetings before you join the queue for readings. I went to another where you could get read on the first meeting.

LCW meetings have 30-40 attendees cracking atmosphere and people stay. The other struggled to get 3 and was an utter waste of time.

Quote: David Bussell @ August 30 2011, 10:01 AM BST

Not everyone thinks "bringers" are antisocial - to many they're the absolute opposite.

Let's say a guy decides to start a night showcasing new comics, books a room in a pub (with no money changing hands) and puts on a bunch of open-mics. Maybe he's doing it because he wants to learn some MC skills, maybe he's just the kind of person who wants to give new talent a leg up (those people do exist!). He runs it a couple of weeks and the numbers are terrible. Now he's in danger of losing the venue. What's more, he's got a bunch of comics playing to a largely empty space, which is no fun for anyone. He's tries to promote the evening every which way but there's just so much competition out there. He decides, given that he's not making a profit out of this venture, to ask acts to help him bolster the numbers and make the evening more enjoyable for everyone, and they do so. Maybe it's a bit of a ball-ache for that comic to have to ask their friends to watch them play or perhaps their friends are happy to come along and support their mate in realising their ambition of being a comedian. Either way they show up and, maybe, just maybe, have a good time for zero cost.

Tell me, how is the guy running this gig "lining his own coffin"?

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If you can't get any punters the gig is shit and can close.
You cite the example of people being miserable because the gig has no one at it and then how through the "magic of bringer" suddenly everyone is happy because there is an audience.
But it is a conjouring trick. What has happened is that instead of the acts being miserable because there is no audience they are miserable because they have been leaned on to do unpaid labour. They misery hasn't dematerialised it has just been displaced to another form where it is out of the sight and mind of the person filling their pockets from other people working for less than nothing. These acts are really doing the promoter's job for him and the promoter should be cut out the equation.
It is a way of keeping alive artificially gigs that should die by deleteing the financial risks of putting on a night.

You talk about "no cost" but of course there is a cost in continually chasing round after "mates" to "support" you. Human beings can only maintain 150 stable social relationships at a time ...the act will very quickly burn them out. What do they do then? They have already socially isolated themselves by dragging their mates to bad comedy nights. Then acts start dragging each other. Where is the point in that. If you work out the financial model as done on the CRAPP page it's ridiculous. For one thing count how many times the unpaid costs of commuting are multiplied. All these schemes are basically no more than old fashioned forms of bribery that exclude the poor from comedy.
Also the financial model of bringers only works by booking acts on the basis of how many friends they can bring. Therefore it needs to encourage people to continually bring an unlimited number of friends. The financial model works by keeping the acts at the bottom and the promoter at the top. Professional acts won't be seen dead there so there is no progression. As you say yourself bringer are something "one grows out of".

You can argue that it is free to get in so not doing that much harm but you are still asking the acts and indeed the audience if they don't want to be there to do unpaid work for you. This is wrong and will never be an innocent activity.

Bad gigs that get no punters should die.
It's natural selection.

Also I have to say to your throwing out the room argument - I've been in the same room for 11 years. The only reason many of these people are in danger of being thrown out their rooms is the volume of hard cash they take off their landlords for very little actual return in increased beer sales.
"We'll lose the room" is the oldest piece of emotional blackmail in the book trotted out but every Arthur Daley who wants to lean on their open spots as a source of sub-minimum wage labour. This is why we put the page up - to puncture these putrid myths.

"He decides, given that he's not making a profit out of this venture, to ask acts to help him bolster the numbers and make the evening more enjoyable for everyone"

The world doesn't owe you a living. Neither do the acts. Neither do the audience. This says everything you need to know about Bringers. They are not entertainment they are the inverse of entertainment. They are not people going out to see something entertaining, they are people being dragged out to see something boring. Really if you're that desperate for stage time you'd be better off going round each other's houses - it's not as stupid as it sounds.

Of course that's just what I think...

Quote: Anthony Miller @ August 30 2011, 10:57 AM BST

If you can't get any punters the gig is shit and can close.
You cite the example of people being miserable because the gig has no one at it and then how through the "magic of bringer" suddenly everyone is happy because there is an audience.
But it is a conjouring trick. What has happened is that instead of the acts being miserable because there is no audience they are miserable because they have been leaned on to do unpaid labour. They misery hasn't dematerialised it has just been displaced to another form where it is out of the sight and mind of the person filling their pockets from other people working for less than nothing. These acts are really doing the promoter's job for him and the promoter should be cut out the equation.
It is a way of keeping alive artificially gigs that should die by deleteing the financial risks of putting on a night.

You talk about "no cost" but of course there is a cost in continually chasing round after "mates" to "support" you. Human beings can only maintain 150 stable social relationships at a time ...the act will very quickly burn them out. What do they do then? They have already socially isolated themselves by dragging their mates to bad comedy nights. Then acts start dragging each other. Where is the point in that. If you work out the financial model as done on the CRAPP page it's ridiculous. For one thing count how many times the unpaid costs of commuting are multiplied. All these schemes are basically no more than old fashioned forms of bribery that exclude the poor from comedy.
Also the financial model of bringers only works by booking acts on the basis of how many friends they can bring. Therefore it needs to encourage people to continually bring an unlimited number of friends. The financial model works by keeping the acts at the bottom and the promoter at the top. Professional acts won't be seen dead there so there is no progression. As you say yourself bringer are something "one grows out of".

You can argue that it is free to get in so not doing that much harm but you are still asking the acts and indeed the audience if they don't want to be there to do unpaid work for you. This is wrong and will never be an innocent activity.

Bad gigs that get no punters should die.
It's natural selection.

Also I have to say to your throwing out the room argument - I've been in the same room for 11 years. The only reason many of these people are in danger of being thrown out their rooms is the volume of hard cash they take off their landlords for very little actual return in increased beer sales.
"We'll lose the room" is the oldest piece of emotional blackmail in the book trotted out but every Arthur Daley who wants to lean on their open spots as a source of sub-minimum wage labour. This is why we put the page up - to puncture these putrid myths.

"He decides, given that he's not making a profit out of this venture, to ask acts to help him bolster the numbers and make the evening more enjoyable for everyone"

The world doesn't owe you a living. Neither do the acts. Neither do the audience. This says everything you need to know about Bringers. They are not entertainment they are the inverse of entertainment. They are not people going out to see something entertaining, they are people being dragged out to see something boring. Really if you're that desperate for stage time you'd be better off going round each other's houses - it's not as stupid as it sounds.

Of course that's just what I think...

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It seems to me there are three separate issues being discussed here...

1. Pay to play. As far as our attitudes on that, it seems we're both in agreement (though you're certainly of a more militant mind). Asking comics to pay for the privilege of entertaining an audience is a bullshit practice and more fool those who take part in it. That said, the moment you start removing personal choice you not only "police" you dictate, so if a comic wants to offer their services at a cost, who are you or I to stop them?

2. Paid bringers. Demanding that a comic bring an audience and then charging their guests - another thing I can't get with. The same caveat about personal choice applies though.

3. Unpaid bringers. So long as no one is getting rich I just don't see the harm. Your points above centre on things like "unpaid labour", "making a living", "minimum wage", "financial models" and who's "job" something is. Unpaid bringers aren't work. They aren't a third world sweat shop. By and large they're a bunch of middle class graduates trying out new jokes in front of a friendly audience. Those first few gigs are an apprenticeship the way I see it - who starts out at stand up expecting to get paid right away?

And your last paragraph contains way too many assumptions - a gig is automatically bad just because there are people in the audience who were asked to come? "Dragged along" might apply in some cases but "invited" would certainly be a less hysterical term. I've been to plenty of open mic bringers (as audience and to perform) that were a bunch of fun. No one got paid, no one got charged and there wasn't a hint of criminal conspiracy. I just don't see what the "conjouring trick" is.

You witter on about expecting to be paid. But ...It's not about expecting to be paid - it's about expecting not to be asked to do the unpaid manual labour of promoting which should be the promoter's job as he is the one making money out of the gig.

It is always wrong to ask or expect people to do unpaid manual labour for you for free. Bringer promoters are effectively using their open spots as call centres. This is wrong. Also if the audience are not there by genuine choice then they are really doing unpaid work for you by being there ...not to mention paying to travel to the gig.

Of course acts at all levels need stage time to test stuff and develop but someone doing an unpaid open spot - which is supposed to be an audition for a paid gig or a chance to test material in an unpressured situation - is not the same as asking them to do the unpaid manual labour of promoting for free. If you create a financial model that relies on people doing unpaid manual labour then you have to continually find people to do that labour. The solution to this is usually threats of blacklisting and implicit or direct intimidation. No one with a brain continually does unpaid manual labour for a promoter out of choice.

There is always give and take in business, but some people are just always take. When you cynically exploit goodwill to maximise your profits at any cost that is what people with and without degrees (and not all open spots are graduates) call "a con".

I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with you suggesting it might help to bring mates - of course that is obviously true. But when you make it a condition of booking you have created "a bringer". Since the condition of booking is no longer whether or not you are actually funny by definition the gig is now no longer professional but a bringer and professional acts will run a mile from it.

The philosophical ideal of the CRAPP is that it is the promoter's job to get the audience and the acts job to be funny (unless they are both one and the same person). When the promoter lays off the responsibility of getting the audience onto acts misery and/or disaster are the result ... usually. In my experience.

So what about work experience or internships?

I mean if I want to work in film or television or fashion. Then I expect to fetch a lot of coffee and do a lot of photocopying.

Quote: Anthony Miller @ August 30 2011, 11:55 AM BST

You witter on about expecting to be paid. But ...It's not about expecting to be paid - it's about expecting not to be asked to do the unpaid manual labour of promoting which should be the promoter's job as he is the one making money out of the gig.

It is always wrong to ask or expect people to do unpaid manual labour for you for free. Bringer promoters are effectively using their open spots as call centres. This is wrong. Also if the audience are not there by genuine choice then they are really doing unpaid work for you by being there ...not to mention paying to travel to the gig.

Of course acts at all levels need stage time to test stuff and develop but someone doing an unpaid open spot - which is supposed to be an audition for a paid gig or a chance to test material in an unpressured situation is not the same as asking them to do the unpaid manual labour of promoting for free. If you create a financial model that relies on people doing unpaid manual labour then you have to continually find people to do that labour. The solution to this is usually threats of blacklisting and implicit or direct intimidation. No one with a brain continually does unpaid manual labour for a promotor out of choice.

There is always give and take in business, but some people are just always take. When you cynically exploit goodwill to maximise your profits at any cost that is what people with and without degrees (and not all open spots are graduates) call "a con".

I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with you suggesting it might help to bring mates - of course that is obviously true. But when you make it a condition of booking you have created "a bringer". Since the condition of booking is no longer whether or not you are actually funny by definition the gig is now no longer professional but a bringer and professional acts will run a mile from it.

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How exactly did I "witter" about getting paid? By unpaid bringer I mean exactly that - nobody gets paid. That includes the promoter. I thought I made that pretty clear.

The only person who might stand to make a profit in the scenario I mentioned is the owner of the venue, who would likely sell a few extra beers (should the audience choose to purchase them). A small price to pay for a free night of comedy I would say, and hardly a case of exploitation. Against that consider what the comic gets out of it - an opportunity to test new material in a room with a guaranteed audience. This really has nothing to do with financial models and certainly doesn't involve intimidation and blacklisting - in fairness that sounds more like something you're calling for.