Tag: comedy producing

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Producing a Show: Running The Show

Congratulations! You’ve got a venue, you’ve booked comics and there’s lots of people in the audience. Now the real headache begins! One hundred things can and will go wrong every time you run a show.

Before getting into all the details, if you remember nothing else about running a show, remember to:

Be flexible and don’t panic!

With that said, here’s what to do when you’re running a stand-up comedy show.
(Note: Some of these steps aren’t necessary depending on the venue.)

  • Set up and test the equipment, rearrange furniture if needed
  • Work the box office selling tickets (if you’re charging cover) and check-in people who pre-purchased tickets
  • Seat people (towards the front first!)
  • Make pre-show announcements (turn off pagers, any drink minimums, etc)
  • Introduce and bring up the MC
  • Decide the order of comics and how much time each comic is doing and tell them
  • Keep track of how much time each comic is doing
  • Light the comic when they have one minute remaining
  • Let the waitresses know when to drop the checks (if applicable)
  • Make an announcement to clear the room after the show ends (if applicable)
  • Put the room back how you found it

Here’s some common problems and possible solutions:

The line up needs to be changed

You should have a lineup in advance that lists the order of the comics and how long each comic is doing. However, unless you’re producing a MC – Feature – Headliner format, the lineup almost always changes at the last minute. Treat your original lineup as a starting hypothesis and not like the Ten Commandments. When making line up changes the most important thing to keep in mind is if there’s a hard stop time that the show must be over by. If so, work backwards from there. And don’t forget to add 30 to 60 seconds between comics for the MC to have time to bring up the next comedian.

The show has to end earlier than scheduled

All your comics are on time and don’t run the light, but suddenly management decides you only have 70 minutes instead of 100. The most important thing to do, is not get pissy at management. Asking them if they can do anything about giving the show more time is okay, just don’t get into a yelling match with them or anything. When this happens, be ready to cut everyone’s time. Most comics will be understanding about this. You might also consider taking yourself off of the show to save time.

Comics go longer than you want

Comics run the light way too often. If you’re a comic reading this, you’ve probably run the light a few times yourself. If the show is running late, make sure to remind comics not to run the light. If you stress how tight the show is, they’re less likely to do it (although it’s not guaranteed). Be ready to keep waving the light until they come off stage.

A comic doesn’t show up or cancels at the last minute

This is a bigger deal if you have only 3 or 4 comics on the show and two of them have already gone up. There’s a minimum amount of time most places will want a show to run, and you don’t want to give someone more time than they can handle, especially if they’re already on stage. One way to solve this is to have comics check-in by a certain time, and if they’re not there, take them off the show so you can split the remaining time fairly from the beginning. Another solution is to always book one comic that you know can do a lot of time if needed, and don’t put that comic on until the other comics have shown up or told you they’re not gonna make it.

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Producing Your Own Show: The Audience

Producing a show is one of the best ways to get stage time before you’re “passed” at a club or booking consistent road work. When you produce your own show you need to be able to manage four equally important parts: the venue, the comics, people showing up to watch the show (this post) and then running the actual show. This post focuses on the audience and getting them to come to the show.

So you’ve booked a venue and have funny comedians performing on your show? Now you have to worry about the hardest part: getting an audience. Comedy isn’t any fun without people in the seats. While part of how you promote your show depends on the venue it’s at, most of it depends on you and your willingness to market the show (even if it’s a free show).

Here are some common methods to let people know your show exists and that they should come to it:

Flyers

Design a square and vertical flyer that states the date, time, location and description of the show. Photos of the comics also help. As does white space. Canva is your friend.

Timing: Design the fliers as soon as your comics are booked. Post fliers around town 3-5 days before the show. Consider having someone pass out fliers near the venue for an hour before the show to get last-minute “impulse” customers.

Posters At The Venue

This is the best way to get people who already know and like the venue to consider returning for your show. Put up flyers/posters in the bathroom stalls, on tables or in the window. If you can splurge, get a big A-Frame with a 24×36″ poster that can be placed outside the venue. (Make sure to get the venues approval before putting anything up!)

Instagram and Facebook Ads

Meta is a multi-billion dollar company because targeted ads work. After you make a nice flyer, put some money into advertising the show in a small radius for interests that match.

Timing: You generally get early birds buying tickets about 3 weeks out. Then some people buy week of, and half of ticket buyers decide within 48 hours of show time. So spend half your budget the last 96 hours before the show, and half your budget for the 2-3 weeks before that.

Local Event Websites

If you’re in a smaller town (aka not NYC or LA), chances are good that there are multiple websites dedicated to covering events in your area. Most of them accept submissions because they need the content. Patch is one such website. Do a little Googling and you’ll find other.

Timing: As soon as you have a flyer.

Email

If someone has attended a previous show of yours, collect their email address and add them to your mailing list. Then send an email to your list promoting your show. Make sure you don’t do this too often, lest your emails get marked as spam.

Timing: No more than one email per week, and limit to 3 emails per month.

Phone Calls

The good old human touch is most effective and most time consuming. Call your friends and anyone else who was dumb enough to give you their phone number and let them know about the show. That will drastically increase the chances that they show up or never answer your calls again.

Timing: Call people a week or two before the show and just mention the show in conversation. Then call the day before the show to remind them. This is a huge time investment, but if you have the patience, this can be very worthwhile (or at the very least, provide for new material when people start giving you crazy excuses for why they can’t make it).

Have Comics Bring People

You can tell some of the comics that they need to bring x number of people in order to perform. But keep in mind that more established comedians do not do “bringer shows” so this will be more effective with newer comics, which might bring down the quality of the show. (But having no audience also brings down the quality of the show.)

For the professional comedians, just tag them in your social media posts and hope that they repost it.

Timing: Tell the comics when you book them about their bringer requirement so that they have time to invite people and to decide if they still want to do your show. Then the night of the show, keep track of how many people each comic has brought.

Constant Pimping

Whenever you talk to someone, mention your show at some point during the conversation. Hopefully you have some social tact and this isn’t the first or last thing that you discuss with them.

Timing: Always, that’s why it’s called “constant pimping.