Spambands: The payback

You'll know we don't like bands who encourage spamming (and kudos to Chris Mills for his non-spamtastic approach to putting together a street-team, although it would have been better if he'd used a different name altogether - the way things are, the French Resistance would have called themselves the DeGaulle Street Team) but we've been following some complaints elsewhere on the Internet where Publicity organisers have been promising Street Teamers guestlist places at gigs, without either them or the label involved clearing it with the actual promoter. The upshot is, of course, that the promoters are ending up out-of-pocket as people who may have done as little as throw forty fliers in a bin turn up and get in free - five or six Street teamers getting Guest List can mean the difference between profit and loss for many promoters of small gigs, and if (as in the case we've heard) six people were given free entry for handing out two hundred fliers, that makes for very expensive promotion of a gig...