Producing a show is a proven way to get extended 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, the audience and the actual show. This post focuses on the venue.
When producing, the venue is the first step. If you don’t have a venue, with a date and time, you can’t do the rest of the work. There’s usually three main types of venues:
A Comedy Club or Blackbox Theater
Most comedy clubs have off-peak nights or smaller, secondary rooms where an outside producer (that’s you!) can “rent” the space to produce a show.
Financials: Revenue comes from how much tickets are sold for and the two drink minimum. Certain venues let you keep all of the ticket sales. Other clubs charge a room rental fee. Others take a percentage of your ticket sales. Sometimes it’s a rental fee plus a percentage of ticket sales. However, nearly all clubs keep all the drink money as the business model of a comedy club is mostly focused on selling drinks.
Pros: You get to perform at a comedy club and have a video of it. When booking better comedians, it’s easier to get them to perform at “The Comedy Club” than at “Moe’s Diner.”
Cons: Until the owner or manager gets to know you, or until you have a consistent reputation for drawing a good-sized crowd, most clubs will not give you a prime-time slot (Fridays and Saturdays between 7 and 10pm), which makes it harder to sell tickets. Clubs are also less likely to give you multiple shots at building up a larger audience. For example, if your first show has 6 audience members, you likely won’t be allowed to produce another show at the same club for a long while.
A Bar or Restaurant
Many bars have slow nights (Sunday to Thursday) and/or slow hours (after the happy hour but before the party crowd) and would be happy to get someone else to bring people into the bar or keep their existing customers amused and drinking. Ideally, you would be in a private room of a bar, so only people that want to watch the show will go back there.
Financials: Most bar shows are free. This is because some city/states require a cabaret license for live ticketed performances. It’s also because bars don’t want to turn away customers that don’t care about the comedy. However, you can try to negotiate a cut of the drink sales or at least get free drinks for comedians.
Pros: It’s easier to have a weekly show while slowly growing the show’s following. There are times when the bar is completely empty and many mangers would prefer 3 patrons to no patrons.
Cons: Bars can get loud. Not everyone that’s at the bar is there for the comedy show, and unless you’re renting out the whole bar, they’re paying customers too so you can’t tell them to shut up. Also, if you’re trying to make money on charging at the door, this might be harder as bars won’t want to turn away other patrons.
Conference Rooms, Hotels, etc
Description: Any room with chairs can be turned into a comedy show. A hotel conference room, a library’s meeting room, a yoga studio, a laundromat, even your own basement.
Financials: There may be a room rental fee. Or the venue might just be happy to have people learning that it exists. Up to you if you want to charge a ticket fee or make it free.
Pros: You often have full control of how to run the event.
Cons: Lack of credibility. It’s harder to convince audience members and comedians to come to “12 Dark Alley Street” than to “The Comedy Club” or “Moe’s Bar and Grill.”
If not at a comedy club or theater, keep these additional questions in mind:
- Will you need your own mic, amp and/or mic stand or does the venue have one?
- Is there a stage? If not, will you bring one or just do it on the floor?
- What is the stage lighting situation? Do other lights in that room turn off?
- Is the venue easily accessible by car and/or public transit? Is parking plentiful?
-> Next Up -> Choosing The Comedians