One of the headline acts of the Thurrock Festival, the X Factor stars, Same Difference, angered some of the young audience by promising to sign autographs. Then their management requested £2 for the privilege.
If you had your own paper you were ok but for the A4 size picture signed by the brother and sister duet then you had to cough up.
Some young fans indicated that they were angry that they had been asked to pay.
Same Difference did well on the X Factor last year and although they were never going to win they come across as a pleasant, crowd pleasing act. But they are in their infancy and they need the audience more than the other way around. Be careful: fame is a fickle game and obscurity won’t be far away if you treat audiences like that.
i was there and i paid £4 so i could get 2 and i was happy to pay that as we would have to pay to see them anyway
There is no way on earth i would pay a couple a quid for a signature & photo from any band, group etc… unless they gave it all to a reasonable registered charity! Ive been to see much much much bigger acts than these small timers and never had to pay for a signed autograph… That is total fan abuse at the lowest level – free concert or not!
To be honest no-one was forced to purchase these A4 printed promo pics to which are of high quality.
If you go to these type of festivals and looking to meet or get autographs of the performers you generally take something with you such as paper etc to get signed anyway.
It was anounced that Same Difference would be happy to meet everyone ad sign any autographs. Their management did fetch out the photos and announced they would be £2 but you were able to have anything signed. There was no pressure to purchase.
What the report does not mention is that Sean and Sarah – Same Difference Performed a 6 or 7 song set and then signed and had photo’s taken for almost an hour!!! Which is way more than most infact no other artist did that!!!
When you go to these free events – you know there will always be some expense IE the fair, the food stalls, the side stalls but no one forces you to purchase from those either.
If Performing artists gave everything away free they would be broke within no time at all – at least you got something in return on this occassion – Which I did not see from other performers!!!
I totally agree with jaynes at the end of the day it’s there if you want it it’s there own merchandise arn’t they allowed to sell there own merchandise !!!!!!!!!!? £2 is not really a lot of money i paid £5 pound for an eoghan poster to get signed and i thought that wern’t much and i think it’s really unfair what has been wrote if they didn’t like there fans or wanted to miss treat them they wouldn’t put on the most amazing performances and wouldn’t do a signing at all at the end of the day it’s there merchandise and it’s there if you want it !!! but to say what has been said is just not right! and not fair on Same Difference when all they try to do is give to there fans you should be glad theres nice people like that who will sit and do a signing because not many will these days. so next time think before you say because you were not forced to buy it and they was happy to sign anything !