Tag: stand up comedy

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Producing Your Own Show: The Venue

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 (this post), the comics, the audience and running 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

Posted on

How To Do A Check Spot

If you’re a newer comedian (or sometimes just new to a specific comedy club) and trying to get on regular shows (especially in NYC), you’ll likely end up starting with check spots.

A check spot is the place on the show (usually second or third to last) where a comedian is performing while the wait staff gives the audience their bills/checks, runs credit cards and brings the audience their change. Aka it’s the hardest spot of the show because the audience is distracted by math, waiters talking and they just saw how much their drinks have set them back, so you better be extra funny.

So how do you increase your odds of doing well during check spots* when it’s the hardest spot on the show and you’re most likely the least experienced comedian on the line up?!

  1. Start with material that gets a quick laugh.
    In the best cast scenario, you’ll get to perform for a minute or two before the staff drops checks. In this case, do your best quick jokes first, to improve the odds people will continue listening to you.
    In the toughest scenario, all checks get dropped before the host even introduces you, at which point most people don’t even bother clapping when the host says your name.
  2. Once it’s clear most people have stopped listening, acknowledge the checks are being dropped, ask for a round of applause for the wait staff. Applause makes people pay attention again and even if they don’t, you’re trying to “run out the clock” when the chaos is at its highest and not “waste” jokes during the height of barely anyone listening.
  3. Have a joke about the situation. Say something funny about the checks. But don’t make jokes about the drinks being too expensive. Skip this if the specific club has a policy to not mention checks being dropped at all. (This isn’t usually the case, but if it is, be respectful of it.)
  4. Be ready to jump out of a bit early. If someone says something so loud that you have to acknowledge it or it’s a longer joke and people weren’t paying attention at the beginning and that information is needed for the end, just change topics!
  5. Stay present. The more you’re open to improvising during a check spot, the better it’ll go. Talk to a table up front if it makes sense. (But remember to repeat everything they say into the microphone so everyone else can hear it!) You want the audience to see that you’re present and in the room, or else they’ll ignore you and start checking their email.
  6. Don’t get mad at the audience for paying their bill.
    Make jokes, and if some table is taking forever, tease them, but never yell at them to shut up or seem actually mad. At practically any other point of a comedy show, the audience is either laughing, listening or quickly responding to your question. If random talking breaks out instead, you want to control the situation. But during checks, there’s gonna be some talking, and if it’s only a murmur, you can ignore it.
  7. Try to do shorter bits.
    Even in the best case scenario, people will look at their check for thirty seconds, pay the bill and go back to paying attention to the show. If you have a five-minute bit that requires hearing the first minute for the next four to be funny, don’t do it during checks.
  8. Focus in on the people that are laughing (or at least paying attention). Once a few people start laughing, other people tend to stop talking and focus because they think they’re missing something.
  9. Be aware of staggered checks, and play to people who didn’t get their checks yet, then switch.
    If the right side of the room is getting checks first, talk and do material to the left side, then once you see the waiter going to the left side, start talking to the right side, who, ideally, have finished looking at checks by now. This advice only works when there aren’t five waiters who all drop at the exact same time. In which case, good luck!
  10. Save a quick, strong joke for the end.
    While you may not feel great about your set, if you get off on a good laugh, the audience will remember you as funny. So save a good 20-40 second joke for after you get the light.
  11. Know that the first five minutes of a check drop tend to be the roughest.
    You can get no laughs for the first five minutes and still bring the audience back once people start paying attention again. The key is to not panic.
  12. Set your expectations low and have a short memory.
    The other comedians and staff (should) know that the odds are stacked against you during a check spot, so don’t compare the responses you get during checks with how other comedians have done on the show up to there or after.

*If you’re MCing or headlining and they drop checks on you, this advice isn’t as applicable because the audience already knows (and usually) likes you, so they pay better attention.

Posted on

Different Types of Comedy Audiences

You always wanna get big laughs from the audience. But “the audience” can vary drastically, even in the same place – and what one audience type responds to, another may not care for as much. Below is a list of audience types. Choose who you play to at your own peril.

audience_laughing

1) The Actual Audience

These are the people who have paid money and are buying drinks to watch the show. In NYC, there are a bunch of sub-types of actual audience. In an ideal world, you’ll learn how to adjust to all of them:

  • Times Square Tourists – usually from the Midwest or a foreign country and bought comedy tickets on the street as a spur of the moment activity. They tend to respond to safer jokes about subjects like family and relationships, especially bits that involve big character act outs and lots of movement. They are less likely to love political humor, word play and bits that require a lot of thinking.

  • Greater NYC locals (NJ, CT, etc) – in addition to the above topics, they are generally good with edgier material and some local references.

  • “In The Know Tourists” – did some online research and decided on a club or specific comedian to see, they are closer to a NYC local than a real tourist

  • “Comedy Nerds” – these are fans of comedy that listen to podcasts and comedy albums and can name more than the top five most famous comedians. They’ll give you more leeway but usually avoid “tourist clubs.”

  • College Crowd – doesn’t want to hear about your wife and kids issues for too long

  • High School Kids / Prom Shows – responds to jokes about your parents, dating and school , but might get tight about sexual material. Unless they’re the “cool kids” in school, in which case that’s probably all they’ll respond to.

  • Hip Locals – aka “below 14th st” – aka “alt scene audience” – are down for dark humor and obscure pop culture references, more accepting of rambling, long setups and less punchy material. Some overlap with comedy nerds.

  • Urban Rooms – a predominantly African American audience. Similar to hip locals but some material may work better/worse depending on what you look like.

  • Friends of newer comedians – sometimes hate comedy, or are skeptical about the show, but were dragged out by their friend who’s attempting comedy, tend to think they paid too much for cover and drinks and sometimes are under the mistaken impression they should only laugh at their friend’s jokes to make that friend look better at the expense of everyone else.

2) Club Bookers

Want you to get big, consistent laughs with any type of audience listed above. Also they want to make sure audience members don’t complain about your act. Some care about originality too, some less so.

3) Club Managers  

Their primary concern is if you’re already approved to be performing at their venue. And that nobody complains.

4) Club Owners

Does your name help get people in the door and sell drinks? Are you doing something unique that may pay off for them later down the line? Do you seem loyal – aka will them giving you stage time now, before you’re famous, ensure you keep dropping by their club later in your career?

5) TV Industry / Networks / Producers

Audience response matters less than whether you have a castable look and whether they find your material funny or think their network’s target demographics will relate to your material.

6) Talent Agents and Talent Managers

Do you have “talent” – whatever that means? Do they see you generating millions of dollars? What’s your look? Can you write for better looking people? Do you seem “not insane” and easy to work with?

7) Wait Staff

Are you funny and different? Do we want to watch your jokes night after night? Are you pleasant and not annoying off-stage?

8) Other Comedians

This is usually the toughest audience of all, but also the audience who will get you most of your work

  • Headliners – Are you funny enough and easy to hang out with for long car rides?

  • Next level comics – Do you run a show?

  • Same level comics – Are you funny and do you run a show?

  • Independent producers that are comedians – Do you run your own show and are you funny?

  • Newer comics – Are you funny and approachable?