Perth Audio Price War Fallout

Late March a Facebook page called 100% Upfront Club led to a vicious slanging match between several event firms and the page author, Andrew Chambers. This followed an oblique reference he made to the event firms in the context of a price war affecting his employers audio firm.

Chambers asserts the event firms had manipulated the market in Perth and were able to dictate what they would pay for live audio, which was sometimes close to labour cost only.

A day later Chambers was fired by the audio firm, who claimed the event firms were lobbying various customers to boycott the company. One of the principles of the event firms had spent time on the phone to others, and the audio firm owner believed his livelihood was under threat.

Rather than standing up to the events boss, the audio firm fired Chambers. This was despite Chambers publishing an apology on the Facebook page and clearly stating that the page was his own work, and had nothing to do with his employer.

Ironically the page was motivated by the failure to pay bills, with various festivals, promoters and even quasi government organisations named on the page. It appears some Perth production suppliers have had a bad run.

“All had been going well until a few of those promoter clients defaulted on their debts. This is disastrous for the suppliers, they have all paid out on labour, transport and a multitude of other costs before they had any expectation of cash or profit. Things changed after one particular client, who had received significant support through two prior “losses” (a bad year and a bushfire), defaulted for a third time with debts so significant that there’s little to sero chance of even recouping costs.”

“It started a conversation”, states Chambers, “people contributed their stories and the names of those who really shouldn’t be trusted with credit. The page is a permanent and abiding testament to bad character available for anyone that has some doubts and needs to check a name.”

“The boss comes in to see me, face clouded in the way that says big trouble ‘What did you put up on your Facebook page because they want it down.’ He told me about the phone calls threatening to cut-off all the work we were booked for, all the future work, all the sports, that Old Mate had spent a furious afternoon phoning every promoter and PM in his address book calling on them to boycott Audio Company. I had to remove that site.

I couldn’t remove the site.

“You have to go, sorry mate, I have no choice, if you don’t go there’s no future work from Old Mate.”