This could get a little dicey, so lemme start by saying that the people I root for the loudest and most want to support are other open mic hosts and organizers. 

I know what they’re up against — venues that flake out, techbro algorithms that undermine all efforts to promote, venues that flake out again…

I know their time is valuable. That running a show takes energy. And that the Western way of measuring the value of time and energy is cash money.I also know that psychology and market research have plenty of evidence that humans conflate price with value and mistake “free” for worthless.  

For all those reasons, I respect the decision of every organizer who charges cover. Like, 100%.

And also I refuse to do it. Ever.

Here’s why.

Charging cover is a hassle and money is awkward

My open mic started before money-exchange apps made that dollar-sized compartment in everyone’s wallet as useful as the wings on that flightless fruit fly my 10th grade biology teacher went on about for weeks, so charging cover would’ve meant stocking ones and fives for change.

At the time, Tongue & Groove was a two-person team — my friend Ben was the host and I did all the behind-the-scenes organizational and promotional stuff. Cover felt like one more detail to manage.

Today, even with apps, to me it still feels like a hassle.

Worse, if we charged cover, we’d have to figure out how to split the proceeds, and I am super awkward about that kinda thing.

No money, no money talk. #ProblemSolved.

Cover is kinda unwelcoming 

Picture a new performer arriving at the door of your open mic. You want them to feel safe in your space. To trust you and your community to receive their fledgling poems, raw stories, and heart-wrought songs. 

You can tell they’re nervous. So you smile and say, “That’ll be $3.”

Erm…

Look, I know it’s super normal in capitalist America to have to buy your way into a room, but isn’t it just a little nicer when you don’t have to?

Cover turns community into commodity

At the risk of piling on: I dunno about you, but I am tired beyond reckoning of being seen through the lens of this funhouse reality I don’t remember voting into existence as nothing more than a consumer. 

(I’m also furious that my time and attention — which is synonymous with my very life — are constantly being auctioned off to the highest bidder. And that all of it is enriching people with demonstrably ZERO regard for humanity. Which is why Tongue & Groove has no social media presence. It’s also one of the reasons I run an open mic: to subvert the attention economy. But I digress.)

Basically, capitalism as practiced in America gives me the ick and it’s antithetical to what I want my open mic to be.

By not charging cover, I keep the taint of transaction off the sacred mantle of my labor of love. I safeguard a tiny, creative corner of the universe against the fiendish maw of capitalism. 

By not charging cover, I keep my open mic…well…open. 

Open mic is how I give back and pay forward

T&G has been running steady for nearly 8 years. We’ve got expenses — sound gear, a Meetup page, incidentals. Some of the gear was donated by a friend. The rest I self-fund.

Each month I bring a cooler of drinks to the show. Because hospitality and because nervous people get dry mouth and dry mouth makes it hard to sing, read poems, and tell stories into a microphone.

We have a cash-only hat for donations, which often covers my outlay but not always. I don’t care.

In my standard intro spiel, I entreat our attendees to let us buy them beverage. Because if they didn’t come we wouldn’t have a show.

I self-fund T&G for a lot of reasons:

• Because I can afford to (#Hooray4DayJobs).
• Because I believe open mic is an absolutely vital element in the creative ecosystem.
• Because creativity is the antidote to consumerism and confounding consumerism, on however small a scale, sparks joy in my heart.
• Because I only recently realized that we might qualify for local arts grant funding (#RookieMistake).
• Because years ago, when I got divorced, open mic gave me an excuse to write poems, a safe place to bring them, and a rich connection to people I would never otherwise have met and whom I needed more than I realized.

As Lewis Hyde said..

Actually, I can’t begin to paraphrase Lewis Hyde’s The Gift. It’s way too dense and I’m not that smart.

But I can say that Tongue & Groove brings uncountable value into my life — purpose, humanity, creative inspiration, delight. And that, like a true gift, all this is amplified by the fact that I get to share it with my fellow organizers, the performers who dare to Do The Thing each month, and the audience who comes to listen and be touched.

By not charging cover, the wealth that is Tongue & Groove — call it energy, call it creative joy, call it magic — remains in motion, passing between and among everyone who chooses to take part in the exchange.

As an open mic tourist, I am genuinely happy to pay a cover charge or ante up a donation to help my fellow hosts and organizers keep their shows running. They absolutely deserve to be paid and I very much want their events to keep going!

As a host, I don’t charge cover because, for me, it would nullify the most valuable gift I have to offer.