Grand Theatre Salem Closure Leaves Cozy Comedy Out $18,000

Travis Sherer’s company had presold nearly $15,000 of Gary Gulman tickets for Monday night at the Grand Theatre in Salem, Oregon. The building shut in August. KPTV reported on Monday that Sherer’s business is out about $18,000, and that he is glad the show will still go on. Those are two sentiments you do not often find sharing a paragraph.

The Grand closed its doors in August, KPTV reported, after several performers claimed the theatre’s promotion company never paid them what they earned. Cozy Comedy, the outfit Sherer co-founded, was holding Monday 12 October there for Gulman. The show was not cancelled; it moved.

Where did the Gary Gulman Salem show move to?

The Elsinore Theatre. KPTV reported that the Elsinore agreed to host Gulman on the Monday and would honour the tickets already sold for the original date. Sherer, co-founder of Cozy Comedy, told KPTV why the Elsinore took it on.

They wanted to make sure that the people who lived in their community were able to see the show that they paid for

Rehousing a presold show is mostly admin, and dull admin at that. None of the reporting says who at the Elsinore drew the short straw on all that.

Neither KPTV piece says how Monday night itself actually went, so I am not going to pretend to know. For what it is worth, the Elsinore first opened on 28 May 1926, which made this year its hundredth. As of Monday, the plan was for it to take in a comedy show another company had sold the tickets for.

The $3,000 that went in before the doors shut

Sherer said he spent $3,000 on two deposits. Add that to the nearly $15,000 of presold Gulman tickets he described. You land somewhere near the about $18,000 KPTV gives as what his business is out, though KPTV does not itemise that figure. That is my arithmetic rather than a statement from anybody, though it is hard to read the two figures any other way.

Nobody talks about deposits while the lights are still on. A venue deposit sits in the promotion company’s account, doing whatever that account happens to be doing. The only moment it matters is the moment the company stops. Door splits work on the same principle. The percentage written on your contract tells you considerably less than who is physically holding the cash on the night. The same question of who is holding the money shows up in how comedy festivals actually pay their support acts.

The uncomfortable bit, for anyone hoping to spot this sort of thing in advance, is Sherer’s other line to KPTV. Sherer told KPTV, of the promotion company, “Everybody I knew had gotten paid eventually, and they were open and easy to work with.” He also said he started the business “to bring comedy to places that don’t have a lot of comedy”. He was booking a 1900 lodge hall, which is not the sort of room that comes with a corporate accounts department you can ring.

A bounced cheque, a wrestling show and a cat rescue tour

Cozy Comedy is a late addition to a list that already had range. Cody Perez of the band Amerakin Overdose spoke to KPTV in September. He said 75% of ticket sales at the Grand Theatre would be split between his band and two others. Perez told KPTV, in a report published 8 September, that his band and two others were still owed a total of about $2,500. Matthew Merz of Portland Wrestling said the cheque he received from the June show bounced. That tends to be the moment in these stories when somebody finally picks up the phone. Ashley Murnan, tour manager for Rock Cats Rescue, said the Husseys paid $7,000 but still owe over $15,000.

That makes a cat rescue tour the largest of the performer sums KPTV has reported so far. It is owed more than six times what Perez says his three bands are collectively short. Not a sentence I expected to write this week.

Joe Meduri, who owns the building, told KPTV the former managers allegedly owe the theatre more than $100,000. He described how it ended: “After being significantly behind on payments and payment plans, I sat down with Alex on Aug. 30”. At that meeting, Meduri said, “he said they could not continue as a company and would be filing bankruptcy.” Salem Reporter had reported on 31 August that the Grand Theatre’s managers “recently ceased operations”. That followed “a slew of online allegations that they failed to pay local bands and tour groups”.

Alex Hussey gave FOX 12 a short statement: “I am aware To The Ceiling Entertainment is facing financial challenges.” He added: “I do not have further comment at this time and respectfully request privacy as this process unfolds.”

Perez has filed a small claims report through Marion County Courts, KPTV reported, and has also filed a police report. As of that September report, the Salem Police Department said it was investigating. Nothing in the reporting I have describes a charge against anyone. Small claims is, to my eye, where an act chasing sums this size tends to end up, because a lawyer would eat the win.

The Grand Theatre itself has a longer history than any of its recent promoters. Wikipedia has it built as a lodge hall and opera house by the Oddfellows in 1900. It still lists the building as operated by To The Ceiling Entertainment, a multi-use performing arts and entertainment venue. That description has aged badly in about six weeks.

A building from 1900 was due to sit dark on the Monday while a theatre from 1926 took in a show it had not booked, and Sherer’s $3,000 of deposits has gone wherever deposits go once a company has told the theatre’s owner it would be filing bankruptcy. The bit I keep wondering about is what honouring another theatre’s tickets actually looks like on the night.

Sources

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About River Leanox

River Leanox edits Open Comedy's newsroom. Coverage runs across stand-up's full ecosystem: comics on the rise, club owners booking the rooms, festivals, specials, and the working-comic economics behind the laughs. Tips, corrections, and counter-arguments welcome at river@opencomedy.com.

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Cozy Comedy Says It Is Out $18,000 After Salem’s Grand Theatre Closed