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Gig opportunity, July/August, East Yorkshire
Hi Ellie,
Sorry if this sounds negative but why can't you offer payment? If you can fill the venue at £10 or even £5 per ticket then that would give you a fantastic budget which would allow you to book proper full-time stand ups who will do a cracking job and allow you to build the night through word of mouth.
On the other hand if you get a load of comedians "for a few beers" then you will fill the line up with open spots who, by their very nature, will be of variable quality and experience, meaning the night could be underwhelming and end up killing any potential for a comedy night in the venue or even the town.
Also, July and August are possibly the worst months to start a comedy night, the weather will be hot and the night's light so people will be wanting to be outdoors or on holiday, this combined with the Olympics will make audiences harder to entice.
August is also the time of the Edinburgh Festival so willing stand ups capable of playing the gig will be harder to find and your promise to get "some bigwigs from the comedy business there" is unlikely as they'll be North of the border.
Basically, it sounds to me like you want to start up an open night rather than a "proper" professional comedy night? If this is the case please consider that big city open spot nights in London and Manchester struggle to get audiences, do you really think the people of Seaton will be prepared to sacrifice a night out watching novices trying their hand at comedy?
If you want to start up a professional comedy night with paid, top quality acts feel free to email me, tonycowards@hotmail.com
Whatever you decide, good luck with it, but please, please, please do some research first, visit some local comedy nights, see what they are doing right and wrong and try to learn from them.
Too many people think putting on a comedy night is easy and end up making a right arse of it.
I tore along the dotted strip but it didn't reveal where or when the gigs were happening - just the last page I visited was underneath