Starting up comedy nights

Hi! Has anyone got any advise about starting up comedy nights or clubs. I'm very going keen to start something up in my area but don't really know where to start.

Thanks Magoo

Quote: magoo @ April 21 2010, 1:03 PM BST

Hi! Has anyone got any advise about starting up comedy nights or clubs. I'm very going keen to start something up in my area but don't really know where to start.

Thanks Magoo

View original

This should get you started:

There are many good reasons for you as a comedian to start up your own comedy open mic gig. Here are just five of them:

And that's it! The first couple of gigs may be tough, but in no time you'll get into your stride. These tips are a work in progress. In most cases I have used experience gained from my many failures and few successes as a comedy open mic promoter from 2008-2009. Some of the suggestions and the reasons given for making them are based on my own personal opinions. I would be happy to include counter opinion if anyone wishes to contact me. If you have any hints and tips, based on your own experiences of running or attending an open mic, they would be greatly appreciated - I'd be especially grateful of a couple of diverting anecdotes.

courtesy of Johnny Armstrong.

Maybe it's just living in London, where comedy nights aren't really hard to find, but I'm not cinvinced I'd pay to see an open mike night. I'd pay for proper booked comedy but not open mike which is extremely hit and miss and is really just a way of getting me to spend my beer tokens there instead of somewhere else.

I don't think Bussell is taking this seriously.

Sometimes the quality of acts can be so 'out there' and unslick that it goes a full 360 and becomes some of the best nights I've been too! Which I would happily pay a few quid for if I was not one of the acts mentioned above.

My advice is don't scrimp on the MC/compere or choose them wisely. Doing a 5 minute spot when your not ready is ok as we all have to do it (you learn and get tighter) but compering the whole night just to give yourself more stage time isn't always the answer. From my experience the worst open mic gigs I've been too is when the organiser has MC'd and is reading from notes or way out of their depth and even good 5-10 minute acts can't bring back a night so shambolically linked together. Painfull.

What's your area?

Quote: David Bussell @ April 21 2010, 1:15 PM BST

This should get you started:

There are many good reasons for you as a comedian to start up your own comedy open mic gig. Here are just five of them:

Stage Time: as resident compère you'll have ample opportunity to try out your new material.

Publicity: if you run a gig, more people are likely to know who you are and book you.

Gig Offers: you can trade spots with other open mic promoter/comedians, giving you the chance to try performing to different rooms. These trades may not done explicitly but rather implied in a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" fashion.

Promoting Experience: if you're ever going to take a show to the Fringe, it would be handy to already have some experience promoting a gig.

Money: your gig can provide you with an extra source of income.
You'll also acquire a great number of transferable skills that would look good on any CV, and you'll meet a lot of other acts and be able to network. In addition, you'll be providing a service to the community: there would be no stand up comedy without comedy open mics.

Also, comedy open mic gigs close down all the time, not necessarily because they aren't any good, but because the promoters are most often new comedians themselves and, if they don't quit for any other reason, they'll eventually improve to a point where they're regularly getting paid work and have no time to run their own open mics. A healthy comedy scene requires then a stream of fresh, new open mics to replace the ones that disappear. To help would-be promoters get started, I've penned a set of notes about how to set up and run a comedy open mic.

It doesn't necessarily demand a great resource of time and effort to start and run an open mic. You can put as much or as little time and energy into your gig as you like. You can run the gig once a month, once a fortnight, every week or every day (though it's better to start small so you don't bite off more than you can chew). Drop-in nights require the least amount of effort on the behalf of the promoter: there's no need to book any acts - you turn up, see who's there, sketch out the line-up and introduce the first act (or get someone else to do it). At the opposite end of the spectrum are nights where the promoters book several acts a few months in advance; organise games and competitions for the audience and give every gig it's own theme. This last type of gig is utterly brilliant, but certainly involves a great deal of commitment.

Although managing a successful gig is essentially quite straightforward, I've included a lot of detail here because I'm trying to cover as much of the topic as possible. The info given isn't exhaustive, so do go to plenty of open mics to see what other promoters are doing. Ask promoters questions and find out how they run their gigs.

The following hints and tips are there as a general guide. The greatest care has been taken to provide accurate information. However if you notice a mistake, please do get in touch.

The information has been divided into:

1. Preparation
...a. Venue
......i. Location
......ii. Cost
......iii. Dates
......iv. Further Considerations
...b. Kit
......i. PA System
......ii. Backdrops
......iii. Raised Stage
......iv. Spot Lights
...c. Charging Admission
......i. Audience
......ii. Acts
...d. Publicity
......i. Flyering
......ii. Posters
......iii. Websites and Magazines
......iv. Charities
2. Operation
...a. Booking acts
...b. Setting up
...c. Timing acts
...d. Holding a competition
...e. Behaving yourself

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1. PREPARATION
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To run a gig you'll need a venue, some basic equipment and a bit of publicity.

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1.a. VENUE
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Your first step is finding a suitable venue. You can find a venue by:

going into pubs and asking to hire their function room

putting a notice on Gumtree

asking anyone if they know of anywhere good to stage an open mic night
Try all of these things. Venues differ greatly in seating capacity, background noise levels, and the amount of kit they already have for you to set up your gig.

1.a.i LOCATION

You don't have to run the club in your own part of town just because you live there. Putting the gig in the centre of town would make it easier for the acts and audience to get to the venue, but there are other factors to take into consideration:

► WILL IT BE EASY TO FLYER IN THE SURROUNDING STREETS? - If you're going to flyer for publicity, the West End is probably the best place in London. People generally go to the West End looking for a good time - an evening's entertainment - so you'll have more luck there than flyering around a housing estate.

► IS THE VENUE NEAR A TUBE STATION? - With so many tube stations and pubs in London, it wouldn't make sense to locate your gig in a pub very far from the Tube. Further from the Tube and everyone will have a harder time finding the gig. Also, if the gig is a great distance from the tube, female acts may avoid the gig as going there would require either a taxi ride or a long walk, possibly alone, in the dark. I understand that such a concern may appear sexist: I'm more interested with safety and ensuring that women are not put off doing stand up comedy by unthinking (predominantly male) promoters.

► ARE THERE OTHER COMEDY CLUBS NEARBY? - In the same way that shoe shops and take-aways are often bunched together, the best place to open a comedy club is next door to another comedy club. People will see that area of town as some sort of "comedy zone", and will head to that area for all their comedy needs, and both clubs will prosper. The West End is where most of the comedy gigs in London take place.

Don't worry about spreading London's comedy audience too thinly: there are around 13 million residents in the London Metropolitan Area, with London attracting 27 million overnight stay visitors every year. The number of people watching stand up comedy varies according to how well it's being marketed. Furthermore, having gigs close to one another also makes it easy for acts to double up - consider also what your acts will want.

► WHAT ABOUT ROOMS IN NIGHTCLUBS? - Many nightclubs would be happy to have a comedy night held in their venues before the doors officially open. That way they make greater use of the room and can sell more drinks. The audience may even stay in the nightclub after the show has ended. Often though, nightclub managers will start letting club goers into the venue before the show is finished, thereby ruining the finale. They'll do this because comedy gigs often overrun and they don't want potential customers to move on to another nightclub.

1.a.ii ROOM HIRE

You should not have to pay for the venue. Often you can convince pub managers to let you run an open mic in one of their function rooms because it will bring in extra custom on a night of the week when business is usually slow. Sometimes this means "weekends" if the pub's usual custom is people coming home from work. Saturday is traditionally the best night of the week for comedy anyway. Tell the manager you can bring in customers. They needn't care what you earn on the door as long as they're selling more drinks than usual. You might even get them to cough up some money towards booking a professional act or two. Important to remember is that, profit is never truly the bottom line with pub managers and landlords: if you don't get on with one another, it simply won't work.

Depending on the venue, some venue managers will either:

charge you for the use of their function room

expect a minimum bar spend

let you hire the room for free

give you money for organising an event
► CHARGES - Some venues will charge for use of their function room, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. The manager of the Devonshire Arms in Piccadilly offered me a 50-seater room for £500 - which would have meant that even if I could fill the room, the first £10 on every ticket would have gone to the pub, and who the heck pays more than £10 for open mic comedy?)

► MINIMUM BAR SPEND - Some pubs will want a minimum bar spend (The Glassblower in Soho expected a minimum bar spend of £800 on their 40-seater room on a Saturday: £20 per person (if I could manage to fill the room), or the equivalent of 6 pints each! Only 20 people in the room and everyone would have to drink on average 12 pints!!

► FREE HIRE - You can often get function rooms for free: the room I used at the Queen's Head, Piccadilly didn't cost anything for me to use. The pub made money on the drinks and food. Be wary of venues that are free to begin with, then start to charge when the gig becomes a success. I started and quickly stopped a gig at the Red Rose in Finsbury Park because the owner's cousin let slip that they intended to start charging me for the hire of the room once my gig was successful.

► GETTING MONEY FROM THE VENUE - Sometimes a pub owner will give you money for putting on a show in their venue and bringing punters in (I'm told this is rare in London, but it does happen). The management of the Social, off Regents Street, gave the Comedy 2.0 crew £100 for organising their event in their venue. The money you receive may be used to contribute towards the cost of hiring a headliner, or may be split among the promoters or the acts, or given to charity (heck, it'll be your money - you can decide who gets it).

1.a.iii DATES

Check that you'll be able to use the venue on all the dates scheduled for your gig e.g. if you plan to run the gig on every 2nd Thursday of the month, check the room is available on those dates and then make sure you've got the bookings you want. They may well tell you that the room is not available over December, when it'll be booked for Xmas parties. It's up to you whether you take a break in December.

1.a.iv FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS

► STAGE EQUIPMENT - It's great if the venue has a functioning PA system and a raised stage. If not, you can get hold of all the kit you'll need easily enough (more about that in the next section)

► NOISE - Some rooms are too close to noisy areas of the pub. Sometimes the barrier separating the function room from the rest of the pub is nothing more than a hung curtain. Sometimes there isn't even this.

► ROOM SIZE - Too small and you're limiting the size of your audience. Too big and the audience will spread themselves out - you won't get that laughter-ripple effect (when an audience member laughs simply because the person sitting next to them is laughing). Aim generally, for a 30 to 50-seater room.

► AIR CONDITIONING - This is especially important in the summer months. A hot and uncomfortable audience is not audience that will laugh.

► VENUE CHECKLIST

I've divided the checklist into "must-haves" and "nice-to-haves":

Must-haves:

Near to a tube station

Free to hire

Acceptable noise levels

Fits 30-50 people

Available on all gig dates
Nice-to-haves:

Air conditioning

Complete PA system

Raised stage
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1.b. KIT
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You don't actually need any equipment, not even a microphone, to run an open mic gig. However, some things just make a gig look and feel more professional. It's always nice to have a PA system, a raised stage, a backdrop and some spot lights. Sometimes the venue will have all the kit you could want. If they don't, you can ask to have these items purchased (for instance, if you ask them nicely, they might built a removable raised stage). You can also offer to purchase what you think you'd need as long as you're reimbursed afterwards. And then, if they really point-blank refuse to contribute to the gig, you can decide for yourself how much you want each bit of kit you think you'll need. If you buy anything, it'll be yours, and you can always sell it on Ebay later if you decide you actually don't need it. You don't have to spend a lot. There's also the law of diminishing returns to contend with; you could eventually reach a point where nothing you buy is adding value to your gig. When you realise this is happening, stop spending - I bought a drinks holder for the mic stand for £10: nobody has ever used it.

Of course, you can't expect acts to pay for breaking your equipment unless they do it on purpose. Any breakages must be put down to wear and tear.

1.b.i. PA EQUIPMENT

This stuff can all be bought at Maplin, on-line at Amazon, or in one of the music shops in Denman Street (off Tottenham Court Road)

"I recommend the London PA centre (Denmark Street nr Tottenham court road) for great mic/stand/ amps/ leads. Nice guys who work there too, who are very helpful and patient with technophobes such as myself." - Laura Rugg

► MICROPHONES - The two broad categories of microphone are:

Corded mics

Radio mics
Both types of mics often have on/off switches located on the hand grip, ready to be switched off when whoever's holding the mic is in mid joke. On my mic, I use black electrical tape to hold the switch in the "on" position throughout the show.

1. CORDED MICS

These mics make it easy for you to step on or trip over their cables. Your physical range is also limited by the length of the mic's cable. The industry standard vocal mic is the Shure SM58 which retails in shops for about £100, or on Amazon for less. It sounds great and you can get them without an annoying on/off switch. Acceptable alternatives can be bought for much less money.

All corded mics need a pre-amp to get them to work with the PA's amplifier. A pre-amp powers the microphone and creates a signal for the power amp, which in turn powers the speakers. The venue may have a pre-amp for you to use. If not, they can be bought on Amazon from around £25.

Professional corded mics use XLR cables. Bear in mind that you'll need a cable long enough to run from the performance area to the amplification system. These cables can be expensive: the cheapest ones I've found were on Amazon.

2. RADIO MICS

I used a radio mic which I bought in Maplin for around £40 - it was on offer. At the time of writing, the same mic is selling for around £60. Maplin's dual radio mics cost around £90. Radio mics come in two varieties: VHF (Very High Frequency) and UHF (Ultra High Frequency). UHF is much more expensive but is supposed to give a clearer signal. My radio mic is VHF and the signal is crystal clear.

Strangely radio mics are always too big for even the largest mic holders. If the radio mic doesn't come with its own mic holder, you'll probably need to get a large, rubber mic holder: one that's flexible enough for to snap into place around the mic and hold it there.

► MIC STANDS - I bought a tripod stand for £20 and it broke after only three gigs when one of the acts leaned on it. I had to buy a new stand: this time I bought a "Kingsman" mic stand with a heavy base from a shop in Denman Street for £25. This has lasted for about 25 gigs so far with no signs of wear. Mic stands with a boom are meant for musicians who may, for example, be holding a guitar and need more elbow room. If you expect to get a lot of comic musicians, perhaps a mic stand with a boom is for you. Otherwise the boom is just something that's going to get fiddled around with a lot by all the nervous stand up comedians who do your gig.

► PORTABLE AMPS - These can be used if the venue doesn't have a PA system. A small, portable guitar amp will do the job: they use one of these at Electric Mouse, Big Ben. You can get guitar amps that plug into the wall, or more expensive battery powered amps. Portable amps generally do not require a pre-amp to power a corded microphone.

1.b.ii. BACKDROPS

Backdrops are primarily used to define the performance space (especially helpful if there is no raised stage to define it instead). You can also use the backdrop to promote your night with a funky logo that people will see on any photos taken of the gig. You can even use your backdrop (as I have) to hide tables, or any other furniture which wasn't needed when the room was set up for comedy.

► PLAIN BACKDROPS - These work fine: most backdrops are either plain black or plain white. You can use a muslin cloth or even a large, flat bed sheet.

► PHOTOGRAPHIC BACKDROPS - I use a photographic backdrop I bought on Ebay for around £90 including postage (they're much cheaper now).
My backdrop is meant to look like stage curtains. It was an image the company I bought it from had on file, but they could have printed any image I sent them. They edited the image slightly for me too. You might even include your club's logo in the image you send them. When the printed material arrived, I made a loop at the top (to hang it by) and hems around the edges by folding and gluing the material together with iron-on fabric glue tape.

► BACKDROP SUPPORTS - Because initially there was nowhere to support my backdrop in the venue I was using, I bought a photographic backdrop support from a company on Ebay for around £66 including postage.

Later, I had a couple of hooks put into the ceiling so that I could hang the backdrop from the support crossbar, which was then suspended from the ceiling hooks.

► OTHER BACKDROPS - My first backdrop was meant to look like a brick wall. I bought some cloth with a brickwork print from an on-line theatre supplies company for about £80, and then had a dress-maker sew the backdrop together for £30 (the dress-maker calculated this as being a fifth of a day's work).

1.b.iii. RAISED STAGE

There are plenty of portable stages available to buy usually costing a few hundred pounds. A homemade wooden stage is cheaper and probably quite easy to make. Though I haven't made one yet, I think the easiest thing to do is get a wooden pallet, screw some MDF to the top and paint the whole thing black with some blackboard paint.

1.b.iv. SPOTLIGHTS

You can use professional spotlights - PAR lights, e.g. PAR 64, PAR 32 or PAR 16 - which are quite expensive (and blinding when you're on stage); or you can use the more defuse and much cheaper mirrored spotlight bulbs. I've experimented with a range of coloured, mirrored spotlights from Ryness. They made for a quite groovily lit performance area. The trouble with the cheaper bulbs is that you need somewhere to screw them in (they're the E27 variety - large screw-in bulbs). Ikea or Homebase would sell spotlight strips, but you need the landlord's permission to attach them to his pub's ceiling. For PAR lights, you can buy special tripods to hang them from.

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1.c. CHARGING ADMISSION
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1.c.i. AUDIENCE

You don't have to charge admission (a lot of gigs are either free or only request a voluntary contribution). However, I think it makes for a better gig if the promoter DOES charge: the audience will have invested something in the show and will want to see it. The worst gig I ever did happened to be a free gig. It was in a pub on a Friday night. The landlord had given the promoter permission to use the games room, but no one had told the regulars. At 8pm, the acts descended on the games room and removed the pool table. The guys who had been playing pool stood around and chatted among themselves as we first began a sound check and then started blaring comedy at them. They didn't want that. They just wanted to meet up with their mates for a drink after work, and then there was us with a PA system telling them all to shut up and listens to our jokes.

Even an admission charge of £1 would put off anyone not interested in seeing the gig - it acts as a psychological barrier. I charge £5 at my gig because I think that is what people should expect to pay to see a good show, and it means I don't have to mess about with coins or a money box. If I'm doing a discount, it's generally a 2-for-1 offer. That way I get an extra audience member in, but still don't have to faff about with coins.

If you're making your acts bring their friends so that you have an audience to perform to, don't charge the audience admission. If you do, the act's friends will be paying for the act to perform i.e. it's pay-to-play by default (more about pay-to-play in the next section). Such a practice will earn you a bad reputation. You shouldn't make it a condition of performing that your acts to bring their friends to your gig, but there's nothing wrong with merely suggesting that they do.

1.c.ii. ACTS

Don't charge acts admission. Gigs where acts are expected to pay to perform, so-called "pay-to-play" gigs, are common in the USA, but far less common in the UK. Running a pay-to-play gig will bring you into direct conflict with the purists of the UK circuit. You'll need to be very thick skinned not to be affected by their bullying. In the long run, it's just not worth it: if you charge the acts to perform, you'll lose in goodwill what you gain in revenue.

As a further note: it's probably not worth responding to any critics on Chortle, or anywhere else. You are bound to get unhelpful, mean spirited criticism from time to time as a comedian or a promoter - not everyone is going to love you. Your critics, for the most part, will just be amusing themselves or attempting to entertain their readership. Ignore them and concentrate on making your audiences laugh.

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1.d. PUBLICITY
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To get audiences to come to your gig, you'll need a bit of publicity. The most effective form of publicity is word of mouth, but for this to work you must already be running some excellent gigs. Other forms of publicity are: handing out flyers, setting up a facebook group, putting notices in TimeOut and on Gumtree, and putting up posters.

"Don't advertise the gig as being the best gig ever with the most talented comedians: you'll end up putting people off live comedy i.e. if a brightly lit room with poor sight lines, brand new comics still learning how to make people laugh through a barely audible PA until way too late because everybody overran is the "best that's on offer", they're going back to the sofa/pool table/whatever." - David Jam Granny

Pick a name for your gig that's easily remembered, that piques people's interest and doesn't put them off coming to your gig. Short, pithy names are best. The first gig in I ran in London was called "Looks like we have a comedian..." - no one could ever remember the name.

► KNOWING YOUR AUDIENCE - Your audience will be made up of:

people roped in by your comedy promotion skills, and

acts and wannabe acts (individuals considering doing an open mic, one day), and perhaps their friends.
Getting audience is harder than getting acts, so work out ways to get punters to see the show. For example, run a competition in which the best act of the night gets to return for a longer (paid) spot voted for by the audience - the acts will then bring their friends to ensure victory (of course, the person who brought the most audience rarely wins in the UK, since the British sense of fair play is so deeply instilled in our nation's consciousness). Another idea is to organise a buffet, the cost of which is included in the admission: people would come for the food, but end up staying for the show.

1.d.i. FLYERING

Flyering is without a doubt the most effective way of getting people to come to your gig. Some people genuinely enjoy flyering. I don't and I've never produced flyers for any of the gigs I've run. For a short time I worked as a flyerer for the 99 Club. As flyerers, we worked on commission earning minimum wage plus £0.25p per person brought to gig because of our flyers (the punters got a discount for bringing the flyer with them to the gig - a block of flyers would have a mark made in felt tip on one side and the position of the mark corresponded to the particular flyerer who handed out the flyer). We would talk to the prospective punters and tell them how good the show was going to be. The flyerer who was directly in front of the venue always got the most punters into the gig.

If you make acts flyer for you as a condition of performing (even if you pay them for their effort), you'll come into contact with the purists again. Get dedicated flyerers and pay them well.

Flyering only works in busy areas with clubs and bars where people are out looking for something to do e.g. The West End (further suggestions appreciated), and then it's only effective an hour or so before the gig begins, when the flyerers can say something along the lines of, "There's an excellent, live comedy show going on in that venue, over there, in half an hour".

If you're going to produce flyers, here's a checklist of information that your flyer should contain:

Name of gig

Name of venue

Address of venue

Map to venue

Doors opening time

Show start time

Admission Price*

Photos of couple of the acts (no one will know who they are but if gives the flyerers something to say about the gig).
* I've heard that you're not allowed to put the admission price on flyers in the West End. Apparently, the council is trying to cut down on flyering. If anyone has more details on this, I'd be grateful if you'd contact me so I can update the info here.

1.d.ii. POSTERS

It's a very good idea to put up a few posters in the venue you'll be using. Visitors to the pub or bar (or community centre - it just depends where this open mic of yours is being held) might then be persuaded to return for the comedy show. Apart from in the venue, it's difficult to think where else you could put up posters where it would be both effective and legal to do so. Perhaps you could put up posters in cafes and libraries (if you ask permission first), or, if you're a student, in the campus buildings or in the halls of residence.

1.d.iii. WEBSITES AND MAGAZINES

► FACEBOOK GROUP - Groups on facebook act as mailing lists. You can also keep people informed about goings on at your comedy club by updating the group "description" and "recent news" sections. It's a good idea to have two groups - one for audience and one for acts - so that you can message each group separately when you have to: the audience then only see your sales pitch (they walk through the main entrance, so to speak) and the acts can find out how who to contact about getting a spot (they get in through the stage door).

Only include the detalis of the method by which you wish to be contacted: your email address, facebook profile or phone number, whichever is the case.

► TimeOut - You can put a free notice in the listings in TimeOut. Just email TimeOut with the details of your gig. Include the gig's name, the venue's name and address, all future show dates, door opening and show start times, admission price, and some blurb to let people know what it's about. I generally like to lower people's expectations and allow them to be pleasantly surprised. Here's the blurb in the TimeOut listing for my old gig, The Rubber Chicken Club:

"Comedy open mic every Saturday. A mixed bag of around twelve new and newish acts doing short sets of original material."

I think "mixed bag" is honest, self-deprecating and funny, and it works to a certain extent. A few people each week would read that blurb and come to see the show.

Adding a TimeOut offer (for example, 2-for-1 entry with a copy of this week's TimeOut) will mean that your notice is highlighted by having an eye-catching, green "offer" symbol placed next to it in the TimeOut magazine. Remember that there is an 11 day lead time between them receiving your message and printing your notice. Your notice will also appear on the TimeOut website.

► OTHER WEBSITES - A free notice in the "events" listings on Gumtree is also possible. Add some keywords, like "open mic" and "comedy", so that people searching for such a gig will easily find your notice. Notices can also be put up on events sites like on Spoonfed and London Is Funny and on Chortle .

1.d.iv. CHARITIES

Charities have long mailing lists. If you agree to give a percentage of the door money to the charity of your choice, they can include information about your gig in their monthly news letters. At one of my gigs, I teamed up with Tender - Until the Violence Stops, a UK registered charity dedicated to combating the effects of domestic abuse. Tender has a mailing list of around 4000 and I had a function room for 40, so if just 1% of the people who received the newsletter came to the gig, we had a full house. I gave the charity 100% of the door money since I had no overheads. You can give your charity a smaller percentage - whatever the charity is happy with (if you only give them 5% - they may decide your gig isn't worth putting on their newsletter). Work something out with them. Avoid picking the same charity to sponsor as some other comedy open mic - you don't want to spread the mailing list audience too thinly.

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2. OPERATION
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You can run your gig on a monthly, fortnightly, weekly, or daily basis. If you're using the show to increase your stage time, it's probably best to run the gig as often as possible.

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2.a. BOOKING ACTS
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Ten acts are enough for a two hour show. Of course, if you're running a drop-in night, you don't need to book the acts (in which case skip to the next section). If you are booking acts, don't book acts more than a couple of months in advance. For an open mic made up of short spots, you'll have to book several acts for each show and you will get drop outs - more drop-outs the longer the period of time between the date of booking and the date of performing. You'll then have to chase people up to see if they're coming and perhaps find other comedians willing to fill-in.

The night I ran, for example, was essentially a drop-in night but with a couple of booked spots.

"If you want to build an audience - and keeping a pub happy is dependent on that - then you have got to provide a night that people will come back to and recommend to their friends - so a balance of new acts and experienced acts is good. If you promote a night Sun to Wed - you will be surprised what quality of acts that you can get cheaply or even free...

One thing that makes it easier to make it a fun night and get better acts is - don't put on too many acts - you over load peoples brains and they will leave after the break!

I also suggest running a night with only established comedians - MC-ing experienced comedians really raises your game - it helps that you are likely to be the only newbie on the gig - so you have a chance of being something different to the established acts and getting away with it." - Bob Slayer

► CONFIRMING BOOKINGS - When the date has been suggested and it's suitable for act, get the act to confirm before entering the date in your diary. I used to keep a clipboard next to my computer with dates of upcoming shows and the line-ups for each one. When I gave someone a spot, I always got them to confirm with a personal message (e.g. "I have booked you for 5th September. Please confirm."). Also:

Make sure the booked act also knows what time you expect them to be at the gig.

Also tell them if there are is any material you expressly don't want them to do e.g. jokes about rape, paedophilia, wanking, sheep shagging, etc. For example, The Stand in Glasgow confirmed my booking with an email in which they insisted I do no material about reality TV.
► FUDGED BOOKINGS - If an act turns up and swears they were booked and you have no record of the booking on you, put the act on the bill - the show won't overrun that much. Check when you get home if the act was telling the truth - don't allow yourself to be fooled twice.

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2.b. SETTING UP
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Arrive early to get the room set up (at least half and hour before the gig's doors open). Then:

Put up the backdrop and switch the spotlights on.

Conduct a sound check.

Set up the chairs and tables (having tables at the front encourages the audience to take the seats close to the stage - a full front row makes for a much better gig).

When the acts arrive, sketch out the line up.

Decide whether to have an interval - I've heard that most comedy clubs in North America don't bother with an interval: an interval wrecks the gig's momentum. On the other hand, a drink and a smoke during the interval could make the audience more conducive to laughter.
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2.c. TIMING THE ACTS
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It's important to time the acts so that they don't overrun. Overrunning is likely to annoy the other acts on the bill, who will all want stage time equally. Additionally, if everyone overruns by a wide margin it will affect the show's end time, and some people have trains to catch.

Have a signal ready to show the acts their time is up. This is only useful if the acts know what the signal means and can see it from the stage (the act may not see the signal if they are blinded by the spot lights). Overrunning by a couple of minutes isn't a big deal; much longer and the compère should consider walking very slowly towards the stage to take back the mic.

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2.d. HOLDING A COMPETITION
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Holding a competition allows the compère to stretch their bantering skills a little. It gives them something to do and while they're doing it, they can chat and make off the cuff remarks, which may end up as a permanent feature of their set. Competitions are also something for the audience to get involved in, and may come as a welcome relief from the repetitive onslaught of new acts taking to the stage. For instance, at "Why the Long Room?" the compères ran a caption competition with prizes purported to have been bought in a pound shop - it was a lot of fun.

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2.e. BEHAVING YOURSELF
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If you're running a gig, it's your train set. You don't have to answer to anyone except the owner or manager of the venue you're using. However, with great power comes great responsibility:

► DON'T CRITICISE OTHER PROMOTERS OR COMEDY NIGHTS ON STAGE - It may seem funny at the time but it'll make you look unprofessional, vindictive and stupid, and you may have to work with these people one day: don't burn your bridges.

► BE NICE TO YOUR ACTS - Of course, it's hard to be nice to everyone, but do try. A bad introduction as MC could ruin the act's set (or make them believe you ruined it - in either case they'll hate you for it). And after their set, don't insult them: it'll appear as if you're jealous that the act has more talent than you do. If, on the other hand, the act was utterly dreadful, you might feel like addressing the awkward silence left in the room. Just don't say anything too harsh - the act is probably feeling sensitive to the situation and any thoughtless comments will be received like vinegar poured into a open wound. Even if an act has said or done something on stage or off stage that you strongly disagree with, let it go. A baptism of fire is not the best thing to rub off a new act's rough edges. Why should you want to crush someone when you don't know their whole story anyway? The vast majority of acts you'll get are, in fact, lovely people. Only a few will cause you any hassle at all.

► REJECTIONS - Every now then an act will ask you for a spot and you'll want to reject them because you've seen them before and they were dreadful. On the other hand, they may have improved so you could give them another shot. If you really don't want to see them at your gig again, lie when giving your reasons. Your honesty won't be appreciated and you'll make a new enemy.

► TIME WASTERS - The 80/20 rule applies to dealing with the acts: 20% of the acts will take up 80% of your time. The number of emails and phone calls they make just to confirm a 5min spot will astound you. It's best to prepare simple answers to their FAQs, and cut and paste them into emails, or else direct them to your webpage or facebook group page which would give them all the info they need to know - but be polite. If they've added you as a friend on facebook, a lot of potential acts will use facebook chat to ask you when they're drunk or high and ask you for a gig. Try not to get worked up about it.

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SUMMING UP
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And that's it! The first couple of gigs may be tough, but in no time you'll get into your stride. These tips are a work in progress. In most cases I have used experience gained from my many failures and few successes as a comedy open mic promoter from 2008-2009. Some of the suggestions and the reasons given for making them are based on my own personal opinions. I would be happy to include counter opinion if anyone wishes to contact me. If you have any hints and tips, based on your own experiences of running or attending an open mic, they would be greatly appreciated - I'd be especially grateful of a couple of diverting anecdotes.

courtesy of Johnny Armstrong.

View original

Really?

Quote: Afinkawan @ April 21 2010, 1:24 PM BST

Maybe it's just living in London, where comedy nights aren't really hard to find, but I'm not cinvinced I'd pay to see an open mike night. I'd pay for proper booked comedy but not open mike which is extremely hit and miss and is really just a way of getting me to spend my beer tokens there instead of somewhere else.

View original

You can fill a London room up to watch open mics, just don't charge the audience too much. £5 would be the absolute limit, and you can only really pull that off on a weekend in a tourist area. Personally, I'd say don't charge at all unless you're offering some level of professionalism. Really money shouldn't be your motivating factor anyway - I run a night of my own and I make a loss every time. Aim to break even but don't count on it. Do it for the love.

Quote: Chappers @ April 21 2010, 6:46 PM BST

What's your area?

Really?

View original

I'm sorry, you've lost me.

Magoo said he wanted to start one up in his area and I wondered where he lived.

(Sorry Dave!)

Quote: Chappers @ April 21 2010, 8:21 PM BST

Magoo said he wanted to start one up in his area and I wondered where I lived.

View original

I can't tell you where you live, Chappers. Can you ask a policeman if you're lost?

Quote: David Bussell @ April 21 2010, 8:51 PM BST

I can't tell you where you live, Chappers. Can you ask a policeman if you're lost?

View original

How did you do that?

Quote: David Bussell @ April 21 2010, 7:17 PM BST

You can fill a London room up to watch open mics, just don't charge the audience too much. £5 would be the absolute limit, and you can only really pull that off on a weekend in a tourist area. Personally, I'd say don't charge at all unless you're offering some level of professionalism.

View original

Like I said, I doubt I'd pay to see open mic. There's several about and the ones I have been to have been a bit hit and miss.

If I've been to one that's just really poor, I would never go back if I was paying but I'd give it another chance if it was free.

I'm happy to pay for decent, established comics - famous or otherwise - and don't mind a bit of an open mic slot in the middle of the evening.

Quote: Afinkawan @ April 22 2010, 11:24 AM BST

Like I said, I doubt I'd pay to see open mic. There's several about and the ones I have been to have been a bit hit and miss.

If I've been to one that's just really poor, I would never go back if I was paying but I'd give it another chance if it was free.

I'm happy to pay for decent, established comics - famous or otherwise - and don't mind a bit of an open mic slot in the middle of the evening.

View original

Fair enough, but from a promoter's point of view I was just letting the poster know what he can expect to get away with. To be honest, I don't think it's a good idea to charge for open mic either but there are some that do and manage to turn a (small) profit.

Sorry everybody I live in saltaire, Bradford area, west yorkshire. Thanks for your help and advise it's much appreciated. I'm not a comedian. I'm wanting to promote. I caught the bug for comedy clubs over in new york over the past couple of years.

Thanks again Magoo