{"id":895447,"date":"2026-09-14T13:24:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T13:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/895447\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T13:24:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T13:24:14","slug":"poster-protocol-winnipeg-free-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/895447\/","title":{"rendered":"Poster protocol \u2013 Winnipeg Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although the days when telephone poles and notice boards across the city were thick with gig posters, either slopped up with wheat paste or wrapped tight with packing tape, are behind us, the art of making an appealing visual ad for live music events is still a vital part of the local creative scene.<\/p>\n

However, a widespread backlash against a new kind of slop \u2014 the use of generative AI images \u2014 has been building, especially among creatives when it comes to promoting live music.<\/p>\n

\u201cLive music is and always has been a DIY type of scene, especially locally,\u201d says Evan Simpson, who has been working as a graphic designer for nearly a decade.<\/p>\n

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Jenna Priestner, co-owner of Sidestage at 700 Osborne St., and a musician in Mobina Galore. Sidestage doesn\u2019t use AI, and a recent hand-drawn poster Priestner made for a karaoke event got a lot of buzz for its anti-AI caption on social media. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor years people have been making their own flyers, or if they have the budget, hiring a designer or artist to come up with some artwork for their flyers. It\u2019s a whole ecosystem, a scene supporting itself. If you take away the visual side of it, the spark, individuality and uniqueness of each gig poster is lost. What a sad world it would be if all art were made by AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

AI image generators, such as ChatGPT, Google\u2019s Nano Banana, or Midjourney, for example, take a text prompt written by the user. The algorithm-based models then use data scraped \u2014 often with no regard or financial recompense to intellectual property or copyright owners \u2014 from a wide variety of sources to produce an image quickly and for little to no cost to the user.<\/p>\n

Earlier this summer, Halifax live-music mainstay Gus\u2019 Pub & Grill posted on Instagram that it would no longer share AI-made posters or flyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cA shit box poster made in MS Paint is better than AI. Support artists or DIY,\u201d the viral post read.<\/p>\n

Recently, closer to home, management at the Keystone Centre in Brandon posted a public apology after using generative AI to promote its annual Wheat City Fall Festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a sad world it would be if all art were made by AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a quick decision made while we were trying to get information about the festival out,\u201d CEO and general manager Connie Lawrence wrote in a social media post. \u201cThat decision missed the mark, and I understand why people were disappointed by it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winnipeg has a long and storied local music scene, with artists from the Guess Who to the Crash Test Dummies, Propagandhi to the Weakerthans, winning fans the world over after getting their starts in local clubs and community centres.<\/p>\n

Visual artists such as Marcel Dzama, Simon Hughes and Ben Clarkson cut their teeth creating visual art for local acts. That link between visual art and live music isn\u2019t one that\u2019s easily slopped out.<\/p>\n

Over the course of his career in graphic design, Stu Reid has created thousands of posters for local bands, promoters and venues, including Pink Floyd\u2019s 1994 gig at the Winnipeg Stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just something I fell into because of the love of it. A love of the scene. A love of the music and a knowledge of it as well,\u201d Reid says.<\/p>\n

While Reid doesn\u2019t do much by way of gig posters anymore, apart from the odd show he puts on at the Stu-Dome, a.k.a. the living room of his Crescentwood home, as an avid showgoer, he keeps an eye on the scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen enough of (AI art), and you know it when you see it at this point. It\u2019s when you really dig into the reasons it\u2019s being used that depresses me,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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Stu Reid aka \u201cStu Art\u201d looks through his newly released \u201cGig Posters\u201d calendar, while being surrounded by \u201cjust a few\u201d of the posters he\u2019s designed over the years. November 24, 2020<\/p>\n

Charlotte Melnyk is a RRC Polytech graphic design creative arts graduate who recently left Winnipeg for Montreal. She got her start doing flyers and posters for skateboard events, then got into working within the local music scene as a member of Our Friend Oscar. She has since done work for the Rainbow Trout Music Festival, Into the Music, Real Love and other events.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen designing for musicians, whether that\u2019s tour merchandise or posters, I\u2019m very observant of what that artist wants to reflect in their visual idea. There\u2019s so much that AI misses, like design principles and styles that are trending. It\u2019s easy to see an AI flyer and it\u2019s so disconnected, overall it\u2019s unappealing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you lose credibility. It shows how likely you are to cut corners,\u201d says Simpson, who has been the go-to designer for Sidestage since the South Osborne venue opened two years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cVenues and artists are always huge advocates of \u2018supporting your local scene.\u2019 Imagine saying that and then using AI to make all your gig posters? A gig poster with imperfections made by a human is far better than a gig poster made in two minutes on AI with little to no thought put into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Jenna Priestner, co-owner and operator of Sidestage, says the venue doesn\u2019t have an explicit policy against using generative AI, they do make a conscious decision to forgo it themselves \u2014 not least because it can become a distraction in and of itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d rather make a silly or simple sign at the bar for a drink special then have an overly complicated AI design to sell a product. If it\u2019s AI, all people talk about is that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d rather make a silly or simple sign at the bar for a drink special then have an overly complicated AI design to sell a product. If it\u2019s AI, all people talk about is that,\u201d Priestner says.<\/p>\n

The West End Cultural Centre put a policy against AI use in place this month after receiving numerous AI-generated poster submissions from renters this summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided to take a stand,\u201d says Jorge Requena Ramos, artistic director of the Ellice Avenue venue. \u201cIt is super important, as a non-for-profit venue, to support artists. We must also support graphic artists. We do not see any value, in fact we see it as a negative, when an artist wants to share an AI poster. The ecosystem of artists that support the music industry cannot survive unless we are supporting each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Requena Ramos, a musician himself, the matter is also personal.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a person in the arts, the creation of AI-generated content prevents you from participating in the edification that is done by sucking at your art until you\u2019re good at it. You are a better person when you do those things, and you\u2019re losing out on that when using artificial intelligence to create content. I think AI is our enemy in the arts,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

While Dave McKeigan, owner of the Pyramid Cabaret, doesn\u2019t use AI to make posters for shows hosted by the longstanding downtown club, he also doesn\u2019t have a policy against it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a person in the arts, the creation of AI-generated content prevents you from participating in the edification that is done by sucking at your art until you\u2019re good at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t want to tell somebody what to do,\u201d says McKeigan, who fondly recalls the days of making posters by hand for the Pyramid and the Spectrum before it, using scissors, glue and a LetraSet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way I look at it, if someone wants to do AI, that\u2019s their business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although designer Reid admits that seeing bands use AI imagery to advertise upcoming gigs online \u201cdepresses\u201d him, he understands the impulse and the economics behind it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s not going to cost you a nickel versus hiring me for $100, if that\u2019s the difference between putting a show on, it\u2019s hard to argue with,\u201d Reid says. \u201cBut on the other hand, you probably have a buddy with a 12-year-old who\u2019s kind of good at drawing; why not just give them 20 bucks to make you a poster?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything that takes care should take a few hours,\u201d Melnyk adds. \u201cSadly, a lot of the smaller independent music industry doesn\u2019t have the money always to hire a graphic designer to do flyers or posters. It\u2019s usually a team of people that decide it\u2019s the easiest route to put in a prompt, but you lose the community aspect, in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n

sheldon.birnie@winnipegfreepress.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although the days when telephone poles and notice boards across the city were thick with gig posters, either…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":895448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-895447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}