Hi, I've been doing a few stand up gigs and have now come to the conclusion that I would like to start my own comedy club/night.
Just wondered if anyone has any useful advice and would also like to ask about venues, should I approach a venue and pay for the room or will venues provide the room free in hope of bar profits.
Cheers
Purple
It's different for every venue but personally, I don't think you should be paying for the room, not unless it's a brilliantly ready made, set up comedy venue with a stage, PA, lighting etc and even then, only if you are pretty much guaranteed a decent sized audience.
For most venues, especially pubs, you'll probably be doing them a favour by drawing in people on an unpopular night of the week (assuming you're not doing a Friday or Saturday night), so they should be happy to provide you with the room free of charge, and maybe, if you bring in a lot of people, even give you a small budget to book the acts.
As for advice, try to make sure the comedy is in a separate room, which can be closed off from the rest of the venue, limiting noise and people just wandering in after the show has started.
Make sure the acts can be seen (lighting) and heard (PA) by all of the audience, if people at the back of the room can't see or hear properly they will lose interest and start chatting.
Get people to sit right at the front, and when I say right at the front I mean that the act on "stage" should be able to lean forward and touch the front row, the closer everyone is to the stage the more intimate the gig, the better the atmosphere will be and the gig will be more fun for everyone.
On a related note, do not put out chairs at the back of the room (or if you do put "RESERVED" signs on them), when people come in, show them to their seats and get people to sit at the front, DO NOT allow people to sit themselves in any nooks and crannies hidden away at the back or the sides of the room, cordon these off if possible. The audience needs to feel part of the show not like they are outsiders looking in.
Personally, I like shows to start reasonably early 8pm (8.30pm at the latest) and finish before 11pm, especially on a week night (closer to 10pm is even better) as people start to get fidgety and worrying about how they are going to get home, whether they'll miss the last bus/tube/horse drawn cart and stressing about getting up for work the next day.
If you have a budget book a decent closer and, if possible, a good MC and opening act.
A good MC can hold together a bad night, a bad MC can ruin a good night.
A comedy gig needs to start and end well, if it starts badly then the audience will lose faith in the night and if it ends badly they'll go away talking about how rubbish the last act was. You can survive a wobble or two in the middle but a death at the beginning or end of the gig might kill it.
There's so much other advice and suggestions I could give you that I could fill a book, in fact a comedian friend of mine, Paul Savage, has written a very good blog on this subject which will give you some pointers.
http://howtocomedy.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/runacomedynight/
Oh and lastly, if there's any money in it, book me.
