Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Plug Chapman. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Plug, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been one of the most interesting investments you’ve made – and did you win or lose? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)
my grandfather died in 2002 and left me 10k. I was in college at Valdosta State at the time and had an idea to make some money. I was pretty popular on campus and was a dj at the college station so I decided to throw a rap concert. I am related to rapper TI who was at the height of his success but in jail at the time, I decided to book his label mates (PSC) and a artist from a town close to Valdosta who had a hit song. I made the biggest mistake in my choice of venue. I had a business partner named King, whose opinions I had to respect as well. I wanted to just have the concert at the club and that way we just have to pay the acts and book rooms. King wanted to use the Valdosta fairground (which technically couldn’t sell out) so we could maximize profits with the club essentially being a middle man. After a few days I decided to take his option and choose the fairground. Neither King or I had any idea what we were in for. We had to pay for the fairground, police to be on site, port-a-potty’s, sound and stage people. Make matters worse King didn’t even have the money he said he did upfront. His plan was to get a loan from the bank in a very racist town in South GA, After that dumb plan fell thru I had already kicked out about eight thousand dollars in deposits and couldn’t turn back. I decided to stick it out best I could just to try and give myself a shot at recouping my money. I ordered the tickets and divided them up with my team. I set ticket prices at $10 and told my team keep $2 off every ticket sold. Another mistake I made was putting my actual phone number on the tickets. One of the biggest problems we ran into selling tickets was most people asked if TI was coming. I kept it real and said no but some of my team started selling people dreams saying he was. Then the money from sold tickets was being used to live off of by the team. Day of the show we prolly had about 25 total tickets sold and about an hr out the fairground was just us, the police and sound people. I called the acts and told them don’t even come down so they got to keep their deposits. We stayed at the fairground in hopes that people would come but we only had about 10 walk ups. The sound man felt bad and cut us a deal on the rest of the money we owed. I had to change my number that night because the people who had purchased tickets were calling upset. I pretty much lost my entire inheritance outside of the playstation 2 I brought for myself.
Looking back on it I def should’ve have verified King had the money he said before going into business with him. Also it taught me to trust my gut in any situation. I always joke and say I leaned almost ten thousand dollars worth of info about promoting. Too bad I haven’t tried my hand at it since. Well at least not rap concerts.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I began comedy at the age of 30. It had been something I had always wanted to do since childhood but was not only afraid to pursue the dream but also was influenced by a lot of outside things like family. I was on my way to what I thought was a career in music management and moved to LA where life pushed me to stand up and here I am. What sets my comedy apart from everyone else is the fact im not afraid to talk about my own darkness in my life and find the funny. I’m most proud of pushing forward after my mother’s passing lord knows I felt like giving up on life.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Crazy thing is when I started my IG I posted mostly pics of myself on stage as well and videos from shows but not comedy stand up clips. I had about 6k followers then let someone run my page that got a lot of followers but they were mostly spam. In 2019 I suffered a major loss of my mom and the world found out I was related to TI and my followers shot up to about 22k. I quickly learned they weren’t really following for what I do it was more of lets see what TI info we may can learn. Not really knowing how to build I stayed around 26k for over a year until I began to identify my “theme” I had to sit down and really see who my audience was and what they responded to from me. I then realized my page didn’t show I was a “comedian” it looked more like a guy who does random things. I then started to put more comedy content on it with commentary videos. On July 28th I posted a stand up clip that ended up going viral so im right at 35k on IG. It feels good because these people are following me for what I do and not who im affiliated with. My advice would be identify what your brand or “theme” is…and then give the people what they want and your tribe will find you.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
How easy it was to edit in iMovie.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.plugchapmancomedy.com
- Instagram: PlugChapman
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PlugChapman
- Twitter: PlugChapman
- Youtube: PlugChapman