Yucca Tap Room hates AI flyers. They teamed up with a Tempe arts group to help bands do better

You don’t have to look far to find content generated by AI. But one Tempe music venue has had it with flyers advertising bands that are created by the technology.

Yucca Tap Room posted on social media with a threat of sorts — if a band sends them an AI-generated flyer promoting a show, the venue would instead post the most generic flyer possible.

In the post, the bar said, in part “We love you, but we really hate your ... AI flyers. They all look the same and, frankly, people aren’t showing up to your shows because of them.”

The post goes on to describe a partnership with a local arts organization that pairs artists who can produce low-cost flyers with bands, that, at least in some cases, apparently need the help.

Jacqueline Swan, executive director of that arts group Tempe Art and Music Coalition; and Aronda Martin, one of owners of Yucca Tap Room and director of programming there, joined The Show to talk about it.

Full conversation

MARK BRODIE: Aronda, let me start with you. How common is it that bands use AI to create their flyers promoting their shows?

ARONDA MARTIN: It’s pretty frequent. We do live music every night or every day, and I have probably about seven to nine shows a week, and I would say maybe one to two a week would be like an AI-generated flyer, like completely AI-generated.

MARK BRODIE: When did you start to see that happening?

ARONDA MARTIN: So when I took over the music program, I was seeing it a little bit because people hadn’t really caught on to ChatGPT or Claude or hadn’t really caught on. And when people figured out it was free and could do things for you, I would say probably in the last six to eight months it’s been a barrage of just really kind of plain flyers.

MARK BRODIE: It sounds like it’s pretty easy for you to tell that they’re AI-generated?

ARONDA MARTIN: Yeah, absolutely. No, absolutely.

MARK BRODIE: What are the telltale signs?

ARONDA MARTIN: The font, and it’s not like a specific font, but it is like a ChatGPT font, and it’s the same font. It is always the same like message on the bottom. It’s like “Good times, live show, cold beer.” It’s always generating like the same — and then there’s like this filter that goes over it, and it’s kind of like this grainy filter. Sometimes it’s sepia. A lot of times it’s like this sepia filter, it’s kind of grainy.

Other times it’ll be like bold color, so it’ll be like “Make me a flyer, but with blue,” and then it’ll be blue and black and like the banners that go over the top. Like it’s really obvious, yeah.

MARK BRODIE: OK, so Jacqueline, you came up with this idea to try to do away with this idea, and it’s basically like a matchmaking service, it seems like, right, for bands and graphic artists?

JACQUELINE SWAN: That is the concept. So I am always humbled and honored at all these amazing artists I get to witness at the gallery that we manage in Danelle Plaza. And there is a monumental amount of local talent, and I am certain that any one of those artists would be happy to generate original art for a band or a business that would otherwise go to AI.

So a while ago, I start seeing the AI flyers come up, and I already knew there were a lot of artists in our community that will boycott your band, they won’t participate in the event, and it started getting me thinking and doing more reading and research of my own.

So I started to think about from the perspective of the person who is making that AI flyer. Like why are they doing this? OK, maybe they’re in a band, they already put all their time and money into the band, they don’t maybe have the art skills, or they’re intimidated by the art skills, or it’s just the convenience factor. “I don’t want to think about it. I want to plug it in, and I want it to come back to me and be done.”

So I thought, “How can we bring all of the convenience factor without necessarily taking advantage of artists?” So I shopped the idea around first with artists, and I said, “Hey, if I came to you and said, ‘I need a flyer in three days and you didn’t have to make any edits, and could you produce a digital file in a format and size someone needed and turn that around?’”

And they were like, “Totally.” I was like, “Would that be worth $25 to you, $50? Like, what is that number?” And almost everyone was like, “$25? I’d do it for free,” or “I’d do it for $10.” And I said, “No, I think $25 is fair.” Like you are human beings, and our nonprofit is really about trying to get artists paid opportunities, not putting that financial burden on them when that lifestyle already is very hard financially.

And so that was positively received by artists. So then we started trying it on our own flyers, and I’d pay an artist 50 bucks here or 25 bucks there, “Hey, make some original art for this flyer.” And it’s really well received.

And so I thought, “Well, the artists like the idea. It’s working well for us.” I happen to be talking to Aronda because we collab on a lot of stuff, and I’ll stroll over and chit-chat, and I said, “I have this idea,” and her eyes got wide and sparkly, and she said, “Let’s do it!”

And she came up with the idea of the shame template. And Aronda, I want you to talk a little bit about the shame template.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, let’s talk about this because, Aronda, you posted that basically at Yucca Tap Room, if a band submits a flyer that you determine is AI-generated, that’s not what you’re going to post. It’s going to be something very, very different.

ARONDA MARTIN: Yeah. Because what’s happening is because I also handle the marketing, I wear a lot of hats there, and so I just don’t have time to recreate flyers for these bands. And so a lot of times I am sharing these AI flyers — that’s what they wanted for their show, for their band — and I was like, “I can’t take this anymore. Maybe I’ll just do like a generic flyer.” And my talent buyer Bentley is like, "Let’s do it in crayon."

And I’m like, “Yeah, but then I got to do it in crayon and take a picture. That’s two steps. What if I just make this?” So I made this kind of like joke post like, “Hey, if you give me another AI flyer, this is what I’m going to do.” It’s Band 1, Band 2, Band 3, whatever.

MARK BRODIE: It says “Doors sometime, show probably, $$,” cost with two question marks. Like the most generic thing you could possibly have.

ARONDA MARTIN: Yes, and I used Comic Sans.

MARK BRODIE: And insult to injury there.

ARONDA MARTIN: Yes, very much. Like, “This is going to be your flyer if you can’t, you know, if you can’t just do something, a picture of yourself, whatever.” So I didn’t really expect it to take off that well, but what I was meaning with Jacqueline, I’m like, “What can we do to kind of like blow this up and to get people to maybe think about what they’re putting out to represent their band?”

We are a creative space. We market towards artists, a lot of musicians in and through, in and out of there, we have a lot of painters and just creative people. We are a creative space. So to use an AI flyer is kind of like an insult to everything that we do.

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MARK BRODIE: Have you had to use the generic flyer for anybody yet?

ARONDA MARTIN: I haven’t used it yet.

MARK BRODIE: Are you really going to do it?

ARONDA MARTIN: I think I might, actually.

JACQUELINE SWAN: I feel like we have to now.

ARONDA MARTIN: I think I have to now, but it would have to be with a band that I knew was game, that had a good sense of humor. I don’t want to get in any more trouble.

MARK BRODIE: OK, kind of in on it a little bit.

JACQUELINE SWAN: You know, I don’t know if you mentioned this, but we have enough anecdotal and actual data from observation to say the bands using AI flyers do not have as good of attendance. Like we’re doing this for the good of the community. Like you will have more people come watch your show or attend your event if you’re using authentic original art, because people see the AI and it’s a turnoff.

ARONDA MARTIN: Yeah, I can actually speak to that. So obviously I’m a creative person, I’m a musician, I am an artist, and so when I see that, I’m like, “Ew.” But as a business person as well, I notice that the AI algorithm, right, so the AI algorithm identifies these AI flyers and just downgrades those posts.

So as soon as I post these AI flyers that the bands have submitted to me, it doesn’t get any views, there is no interaction with the post, and also I’ve noticed a direct link between AI flyers and attendance at shows.

MARK BRODIE: Aronda, have you seen fewer AI flyers coming in since you started doing this?

ARONDA MARTIN: Yeah. So we have a booking process that’s of such a way that the way we announce the shows with the flyers, and we have not received one AI flyer since then.

MARK BRODIE: Jacqueline, have you heard from maybe people who do similar things to what you do in other cities or states about trying to set up a similar program, where human artists can get paid for doing this kind of work?

JACQUELINE SWAN: You know, not specifically to the anti-AI art flyer, but I do have a few folks that I’m setting up consultation calls with just to talk about starting third space art gallery community space for creatives.

I think the artists just appreciate somebody coming out and saying it, because I think a lot of us have been sitting there watching AI unfold, we’re being told about its inevitability, and that can, like you can feel a little powerless, and artists have so many obstacles already.

MARK BRODIE: Aronda, have you heard from other bar owners or music venues who are either like, “Yes, let’s do this,” or “What are you doing?”

ARONDA MARTIN: Nobody’s reached out to me, but definitely a lot of different venues in other states have shared my post or have made similar posts. I’ve been tagged in posts that were like that. So I don’t want to say they copied me, but maybe I inspired them to be able to speak out.

And there have been venues before us that have spoken out and said, “Hey, quit with the AI slop” or whatever. There’s definitely been venues that have taken a hard line, and my line is that I am not anti-AI at all. Like I think it is great for extrapolating data quickly, like there’s a lot of things that it can do to actually help us, but in the creative space, I don’t feel like there’s much room for it.

MARK BRODIE: All right, that is Jacqueline Swan, executive director of the Tempe Art and Music Coalition, and Aronda Martin is one of the owners of the Yucca Tap Room. Thanks to both of you for the conversation. I really appreciate it.

ARONDA MARTIN: Yes.

JACQUELINE SWAN: Hey, thank you.