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For those who are trying to figure out how to book Duck Dynasty to come speak at your event, I want to share the experience that I had. Before I get started I want to say that I expect there to be a lot of controversy with what I am fixing to write here, but everything that I am writing is based on facts and experiences that I've had with the Duck Dynasty booking agent starting in Spring 2013. Also, understand that I am not trying to harm the reputation of any member of Duck Dynasty including any cast members of the show nor the reputation of WME Entertainment or Theresa Brown. I will start off by giving the facts of what I learned about booking Duck Dynasty and interjecting with my opinions later on.
Only The Facts Jack!
After jumping through several hoops in March 2013 to try and figure out how to book Duck Dynasty to come speak at an event my non-profit organization was hosting in August 2013, I finally received an email from the Duck Dynasty booking agent WME Entertainment.
The email read:
Thank you for your interest in the DUCK DYNASTY folks.
FOR SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS (Or personal appearance/meet & greet), their fees are as follows:
WILLIE, SI or JASE: $45,000 each plus first class expenses from Louisiana
JEP, KORIE or KAY: $15,000 each plus first class expenses from Louisiana
ALAN, MARTIN, GODWIN, JESSICA, MISSY: $10,000 each plus first class expenses from Louisiana
LISA, MOUNTAIN MAN, SADIE, JOHN LUKE, COLE, REED: $5,000 each plus first class expense from Louisiana
Please note Si and Mountain Man will only do a meet & greet and photos- they do not speak.
In case you would like to invite any of them, we've attached our Firm offer form to complete and send back. Saturday and Sundays only, from May to August, can be considered at this time. Phil is not looking at anymore dates for 2013 at this time.
Please note, a typical appearance is capped at 2 hours. We also ask that travel is covered for a spouse or other family member when booking one or two of the men together. For instance, if booking Willie and Phil, we would ask for first class travel for at least 3 or 4 if possible. If booking a couple, first class travel for 2 should be sufficient. Private planes are best to offer, as commercial travel from Monroe is limited.
To read more about them and their speech topics, please visit their page on our website:
http://www.wmespeakers.com/SpeakerDetail.aspx?id=13080574
Thanks, and feel free to email or call with questions.
Teddy Petrocci | WME
Office of Theresa Brown
TBrown_asst@wmeentertainment.com
212.903.1194
917.744.2572(m)
http://www.wmespeakers.com
On the day I received this email (Apr. 1) I created this page giving people like me who were trying to figure out how to book Duck Dynasty the information they were looking for. I was not only trying to provide them with that information but also wanted to voice my opinion about how ridiculous the speaking fees are for people who claim they want to spread the word of God.
That page has gotten thousands of views since that time and has been on the first page of Google for people who are trying to find information about booking Duck Dynasty.
In that page I have a conversation question with two options:
The question: Should Duck Dynasty charge as much as they do for speaking engagements?
Answer Options:
A) Yes, they are famous and can charge as much as they want
B) No, they are supposed to be Christian role models and shouldn't let money stand in the way of sharing their message
Since that time, there have been several people who have voiced their opinion in option B stating they feel the fees are as ridiculous as I do.
Today (10/22/13) I received a phone call from Theresa Brown, the booking agent for Duck Dynasty who had an opinion to voice of her own.
From the time I said, "Hello" she was all over me. She clearly was upset that I created a page that called into question the Christianity of Duck Dynasty. She said, "What gives you the right..." She then continued the conversation by asking a lot of questions at one time (which was very confusing because I didn't know which one to answer first) and then presenting me with long pauses when I asked a question of my own. It appeared that she was trying her best to come up with some type of excuse or something to say that would justify her answers, but most of the time she couldn't even come up with answers to question such as, "Why does Dynasty feel they can charge more than $20k per hour for speaking events?" I also asked, "Have they ever done any speaking events for small non-profits for free?" To which she responded, "I don't know whether they have or not..." We went back and forth for a while before I heard a loud ringing in the background and hung up on her.
One more thing she wanted to let me know about was the prices on my page are not accurate. She never told me what the new prices are, but I learned from a reader on my other page that the $45k prices are now $100k.
I am very confused as to why Theresa Brown even picked up the phone to call me today, because she couldn't provide any answers to the questions I asked about the ridiculous pricing and she really had nothing worthwhile to ask me besides why would I call Duck Dynasty's Christianity into question.
That leads me to my opinion...
My Opinion Counts Too!
At this point I am going to say that I know there are a lot of people who might have their own opinions and might fully disagree with my opinion; however, I want to let it be known that this is my opinion and it counts whether you agree or disagree with it.I want to start out by saying that I love watching Duck Dynasty because all of the other shows they put on TV these days are complete trash. I don't feel comfortable sitting down with my family to watch most of the shows that are on, but when Wednesday night rolls around everyone in my house knows that at 10 PM EST we will be sitting in front of the television watching Duck Dynasty.
Now, I will say, I used to enjoy watching the show more in the first season when it was focused more on the Christianity of the family. Every season after that has gone slightly downhill and has focused more on the money aspect of the family than the Christianity. I suspect this is the producers of the show who have caused the show to take a turn. Even with that being said, it is still one of the cleanest shows on TV and my family still enjoys watching it.
With that out of the way, I want to tell you how I feel and have felt since getting the email with the pricing information.
I feel that Duck Dynasty is using God to make money.
There, I said it!
Not only are the prices ridiculous for their speaking engagements, but I am growing increasingly tired of seeing all of the Duck Dynasty merchandise in every store I walk in (mostly WalMart). It gives me the opinion that they are saying, "Yeah, everyone knows we are a good Christian family, now lets use that to our advantage and sell them everything from t-shirts to toilet seat covers with our faces on them."
It also really bothered me that they were holding out on making season 4 of Duck Dynasty because they were not going to get paid enough money.
I feel that if your main objective of being on TV is to spread the word of God then that is what you should be focused on. Otherwise, you are telling me, "Hey, I want to spread the word of God but it's going to cost you a lot of money to get me to do so."
As for my opinion on Duck Dynasty helping small non-profits with little to no money in their budget. I'm not sure if they ever do anything for free, in fact, I'm pretty sure they don't but basically, the fact they are charging such outrageous prices is telling me that they could care less about a non-profit that was started after someone's daughter and sister and her baby were murdered. Maybe they would do something for free for a larger non-profit that could help them gain more publicity.
On the other hand, I understand that they have to have time to spend with their families and cannot possibly spend all of their time out speaking to people. I completely understand that and know that if they were to charge less money they would have a lot more speaking engagements; however, they are in control of their schedules and can limit the number of speaking engagements they are willing to do. That means they could throw a few in for the little guys if they really wanted to, but the reason they don't...because they know that if they do that someone is sure to come along and pay the huge price tag to get them to speak and that darn little ole 2 person non-profit they agreed to help out for a smaller price took up that spot. So, in the end it still comes down to money.
I realize there are two sides to every story and everyone has their own opinion. As I stated in the beginning, this is my opinion. You are more than welcome to leave yours in the comments section below.
