FAQ

What is this?

An experimental marketplace: book strange and wonderful guests for your video meeting.

How does it work?

Browse our Special Guests, select one, and send us a booking request.

Please include the date, time, and duration of the booking. We'll be in touch with you to understand your needs, discuss details, and to confirm availability.

What is the price?

What price can we set on a truly unique experience? How can we fairly compensate artists, precariously employed contractors, and uninsured freelancers?

How can we convert the limitless potential of each human moment into a flattening currency which somehow always seems to extract wealth from the many and siphon it to the few?

Okay, so what is the price?

Rates start at $50 USD. Please contact us with your date, duration, and desired Special Guest for a quote.

Do you have nonprofit/community rates?

Yes. Write to us and let us about your need and situation.

Is this part of the gig economy?

Yes, if in another universe the gig economy was created by a workers collective and the work was defined and controlled by the people working.

I'd like to be a special guest

Wonderful! Reach out to us.

I have an idea for a new Special Guest

Tell us! If we use it we'll send you a special gift.

Will my special guest be professional?

Special Guests are deeply professional and serious about the work they are doing.

Each guest has a specific goal, and they will work towards that goal. During the booking, we’ll carefully assess your needs and match you with a guest who is an excellent fit.

Why did we make Special Guest?

We hope that you, reader, will laugh. And we hope you will look at a special guest and think: that guest would be great for my meeting.

We hope you will wonder why meetings are so often broken and inhumane. We hope you will wonder if there are other ways of gathering. We hope you will question the foundations themselves.

Yes, this is a real service.

Who is responsible for Special Guest?

Special Guest is a project from Marie Claire LeBlanc Flanagan in collaboration with Squinky, Eris, Danielle, Nomi, Kofi Oduro, C.Y. Lee, Ida, Justine Lera, Kaeli, Naoto, and Maya. Thank you to Julia, Aaron, Bahiyya, Lynn, Nathalie, Eric, Jim, and Brie.