When it comes to the con game, a chap called Oobah Butler has it waxed.

We’ve written about his antics a few times, most recently when he sent other people posing as himself to interviews.

Yes, he got away with it.

The same cannot really be said for Jered Threatin, whose UK tour didn’t exactly go to plan. The Los Angeles-based musician managed to book a number of gigs to perform with his band, Threatin, and promised venues that he had sold hundreds of tickets to the gigs.

There were a few problems with those claims, according to the BBC:

…he’s left those venues, and the support bands he booked, confused and out of pocket when nobody showed up.

In one case, Threatin played to an empty venue – after the support band had packed up their van and gone home.

“There were 180 confirmed tickets sales by his promoter,” Billy John Bingham, lead singer of Ghost Of Machines [below], tells Newsbeat.

They supported Threatin at The Exchange in Bristol on 6 November, taking time off work and hiring a van to drive to the gig from Swindon.

The band seemed legit. They had 38,000 fans on their Facebook page and Jered Threatin has more than 16,000 followers on his Instagram.

“It seemed a bit weird from the get-go because no-one was coming through the door with these advance tickets,” says Billy, who persuaded his band-mates to stay and watch Threatin perform because he felt “a bit sorry” because nobody had turned up.

“We were the only four people in the room watching this set,” he says.

He now believes that Jered was acting as his own promoter, manager and record label and had posed as someone called Casey to email and book Ghost Of Machines.

Basically, Jered was just cruising around with his band and having a blast, with other supporting bands at other stops reporting an almost zero turnout at other gigs.

Over on Threatin’s Instagram page, a comment has been promised shortly:

The official statement is apparently going to be done via his Twitter account. At the time of writing, nothing had been released.

According to Jon Vyner, booking manager at Underworld in Camden, Threatin paid a hire fee for the venues before the gigs:

“They played the full show…If they’ve paid the hire fee upfront, we’re obliged to see the thing through.

“The most remarkable thing is that it didn’t seem to bother Threatin. He seemed quite happy to give it his all without an audience.”

At this point, you deserve a music video:

It’s a no from me.

As the backlash has grown, some social media experts in the music business are saying it’s a lesson to be learnt:

“It’s a crazy story but it also shows you can’t fake support, you just can’t,” says Olivia Edwards-Allen, who manages social media for well known bands at one of the UK’s biggest record labels.

“Even with all this hype they created around themselves and overselling themselves, it didn’t matter because people aren’t stupid.”

Venues are cancelling their upcoming Threaten gigs, but perhaps now is the time to milk this one:

…the people who run Underworld reckon Threatin should make the most of their newfound notoriety.

“He’s wasted an opportunity and I don’t think he should have cancelled those last shows because I think they would have done quite well,” says Patrice Lovelace, the London venue’s promotions assistant.

“He’s blocked me on Twitter. We did try to invite him back for next year.

“I don’t know what his point was. I thought he wanted fame and he’s famous now.”

The lesson here? I dunno, maybe it’s fake it until you are called out for it, and then the notoriety might actually help you sell tickets.

[source:bbc]