All Mariah Carey wants for Christmas is you. For her gigs, she wants a swan that sweats champagne. And a dwarf. And a puppy. The life of a famous entertainer is apparently quite charmed, as evidenced in the ridiculous demands made on promoters in what is known as the contract rider; a legal document that compels them to cater to the whims of their famous clients or risk financial penalty or cancellation. On one side of it we could perhaps understand how this came to be. Few of us have ever toured the country stuffed into a van with our bandmates, pulling a U-Haul trailer full of instruments and doing all the heavy lifting ourselves. For unsigned artists trying to make it, even seedy motels infested with bedbugs are a luxury few can afford. The contract rider stipulates what the artist requires by way of their dressing rooms and how they are to be stocked, among other more mundane considerations like staging and lighting. There have been some famous examples that were designed solely to establish whether or not the promoter actually read the rider before agreeing to it. Take for example Van Halen's well-known demand for bowls of smarties in the dressing room but with "all of the brown ones removed". It is apparent that when fame and fortune do come calling things can get a little bit out of hand. Read on to giggle and be amazed by 10 completely insane demands made by entertainers for gigs.