Speaking with a well known member of this forum earlier, it became apparent that he would like me to attend the cycling festival he is organising with my Penny Farthing. I already have a set fee but as it is common for artists/performers to add riders to their contract I need to request some of my own. (I consider myself an artist because that is what it says on my TdeF backstage passwink: So, apart from star billing and the line 'Roger the Hildodger - as seen on TV' what else do you think I should demand?
Aren't there tales of various celebrities or rock divas or other too-far-up-their-*rse people demanding a dressing room full of flowers, or a pink dressing room, or a fresh lobster or something ? My wife organised the Christmas Do for her company for several years, including booking entertainment. One year she booked a Tom Jones-lookalike who'd been on Stars In Their Eyes - he requested a room to change/get made-up in....and a ham sandwich for afterwards. Seemed fair enough !
So, as I understand it, you are taking your Penny Farthing to the Festival, but there is also another rider? Are you taking turns? Btw how big is the turning circle, can you turn on a sixpence?
I would insist on a bucket-full of class-A drugs a bevvy of open-minded young ladies and a small team of experts working out new ways for them to be nice to you!
Ask if you can share the same dressing room as Vicky Pendleton. Also, if you could demand a bowl of red peanut butter m+ms, then that'd cause them a fair bit of difficulty, simply because peanut butter m+ms are extremely hard to find in this country. They're kind of gross though.
Demand an appearance fee of 'one penny farthing' x the cost of living index / inflation since the dear bicycle was first built. There must be an economist out there somewhere to do the calc. - we can't all close our eyes and hope...
I'm with sam - red peanut butter smarties, though I think they are ace!! Other reliable favorites - Lots and lots of slutty girls, huge quantities of drugs, a get out clause along the lines of "You cannot hold me responsible for my behaviour if there are more, or less, than 12 green smarties in a crystal bowl of 2000 of them." just easy to arrange stuff like that really, nothing major.
The Smoking Gun has a good list of peoples riders. You got to ask for a ridiculous amount of towels as well. The only thing that sticks with me from when I used to do stage management stuff was Susie Sioux having two packets of Love Hearts on her rider.
As far as I'm aware "fresh fruit and flowers" is the phrase used by accountants at record companies to disguise money spent on drugs.
From "The Independant" http://arts.independent.co.uk/music/news/article3209881.ece 'while £200,000 is spent every year on fruit and flowers for EMI's London offices.'
