Three Imaginary Girls

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It's a poster flyering WAR out there!

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For most anyone out there sponsoring shows, playing shows, or booking show, flyering is a main component of any pre-show to-do list. It's also the most frustrating.

My fellow flyer-er and I usually get up at the crack of dawn to flyer around town a few weeks before the show (empty streets make it so much quicker). We always make sure to follow the common courtesy rules of never flyering over posters for shows that haven't happened yet and not putting more than one poster on a pole. So, you can imagine how frustrating it is to walk by our flyered posters the next day to find them torn down or covered up by another show. It is SO FRUSTRATING! I HATE IT!

As one flyering fellow told me, it's a poster flyering WAR out there. The main players are Poster Midget (the folks who have about 1/3 of the flyering market and started up about three years ago) and Poster Giant (the folks who've been doing it for much longer and have stirred up a bunch of controversy in the past for tearing down non-Poster Giant posters as soon as they are stapled to a pole – here and here and here and here and here).

A few weeks ago when flyering for a show, my partner and I saw the guy in the above YouTube video tearing down posters near the Comet Tavern. I was kicking myself for not having a camera.

In the video, they say that the person filming the guy ripping down posters was risking life and limb. I don't know about that, but the dude with the puffy coat and bike was pretty intimidating, even from afar. I'm not sure who this person works for since he was just wearing the puffy coat and had a bike (and looked exactly like the guy in the video) — but I know he was tearing down a bunch of posters for shows that hadn't happened yet. Whoever this person is, he has a bunch of bad karma coming his way.

I'm going to flyer in the next week or so for another upcoming show… now I wonder if Poster Giant (or who ever that mean guy who tears down posters works for) is going to let any of our posters will stay up for more than 24 hours? Eep!

(And does anyone want to help flyer?)