I hate it when promoters of entertainment say things like 'Come out and support your local _____' or 'The acts need you to come and support the night'.

It's such awful promoting. For a start it automatically puts a negative association in the audience's mind, that the event is going to be shit, and that they have an obligation to go, rather than a desire. And secondly, fuck off. It's your job to provide entertainment for people. If your night isn't getting people through the door, don't try and guilt-trip them into coming. Make it good. The best nights I've been to, people didn't have to be coerced into seeing the support acts. They wanted to, because they'd been carefully selected to suit the night and were good acts. If you just throw on the first three acts who ask, nobody will come and watch them, because you've made no effort and the audience doesn't trust you. That's not their fault. It's yours. Likewise, one of my favourite comedy clubs does no promotion, but is packed every week cause they've built that trust. Meanwhile, the kind of promoters trying to make people feel they 'should' come to their nights are putting on awful nights with no thought put into them and audiences have a shit time.

What do you think? Is it justified at a time audience numbers are going down everywhere, or is it counter-productive and passing the burden of responsibility on, when it should all be on them to make people actually want to go to their shit night?