This articleabout how a Maui venue, Haiku Mill, is redefining the fees and obligations it requires of its preferred photographers. Photographers have to pay a fee to shoot there, keep the venue in the loop on all email conversations, get approval before posting images and include venue required shots in their shot list. While this is about the event business, this post applies to all creative businesses. Gatekeepers matter if those validating are worthy of the role and maintain their commitment to get narrower and narrower in supporting what matters about those they speak of.
The article talks about calling the strategy by Haiku Mill a commission by any other name. Ok, I guess but the issue is so much bigger. This venue is actually seeking to control the photographer and standardize the images that are produced there. The venue is also trying to control the release of the images. What is missing is the promise of the venue on the other side to promote the photographer and their work at the venue. Go to the venue’s site and the only way you see credit to the photographer is if you click on the image to get to the venue’s Instagram page. You will not see the preferred photographer list anywhere despite the fact that only preferred photographers can work there.
I just love every part of this discussion.
On the one hand, Haiku Mill is an iconic property where weddings are certainly high-end. They have every right to control how the property is presented. On the other hand, photographers having to pay to effectively market for the venue is a valid point, especially when the photographer themselves have an almost equivalent social media reach. On the one hand, Haiku Mill is controlling the photographer by dictating shots and distribution. On the other, they are creating a standard by which they are confident that the venue (and image) will be appropriately high-end. And I could go on forever.
The point: for those who still have student loan debt or belong to any kind of club that you pay to be part of, you paid for the right to be associated with an organization that would have you, so that you can reap the rewards for being incorporated into such an association. This is Duncan Hineseverywhere.
My specific issue with the article is that it does not point out what Duncan Hines and every other validator worth anything does: why do they belong on the list beyond their willingness to pay money and do what you say? Do existing preferred photographers get to evaluate potential photographers? What are the evaluation criteria? If you want to run a TEDx conference, hereare the standards to which you need to adhere. If you want to be a Leading Hotel of The World, hereis the standard you need to meet to even be considered. And, yes, you have to pay TED and The Leading Hotels Of The World to be associated with their organization.
All of which to say, I have absolutely no problem with any venue charging a fee to vendors (it is a whole other conversation about the extent to which clients should be informed of these fees). My problem is that the fees really mean nothing if there truly is no validation of “preferred” other than a willingness to meet the criteria of Haiku Mill. What it says is that if you are willing to jump through hoops, you can play. It says nothing about whether you are, in fact, good enough to play. Assuming those who meet the criteria are good enough is the heart of the issue.
The answer is not to cry foul over Haiku Mill’s practices, but to encourage things to go further. The proof would be in the pudding – if Jose Villawith his 366,000 instagram followers (vs. Haiku Mill’s 15,000) got hired to shoot a wedding at Haiku Mills but refused to meet the criteria set by Haiku Mill, are they really going to turn Jose and the wedding away? If they do not, then all they are talking about is a sham and it really is just a vendor shakedown. But if they do? What would everyone say then? The purity of a validator is what matters regardless of money exchanged. That is what makes Harvard Harvard.
If we are to solve the age old commission problem, we have to redefine it. The hidden money is a ruse. The issue is who should have the right (obligation?) to set the standard and why? We all seek validators when there is overwhelming choice or we are just plain scared about getting it wrong (or, in Duncan Hines’ case, dying from getting it wrong). This is the very definition of most creative business — how to evaluate the artist asked to create on a client’s behalf? If we start there, we can create a much more interesting and significant conversation. To what end gatekeeper?
