The Road to the WareFringe, Part 2

Following on from his introduction piece on the ups and downs of launching a new comedy festival, here Si Hawkins talks ages, gaps and getting noticed: all the fun of starting a fest.

One nice thing about putting on an event in your hometown is that you discover lots of interesting stuff about the place. It can change your whole opinion, in fact. Sitting in a hospitable pub called The Tap a few weeks back with Terry, who co-runs the converted maltings building where our all-dayer takes place, we get chatting about the big old map of Ware that covers one of the pub walls.

That whole map seems to be full of places that either sell beer or make it. It has only dawned on me recently that the town I thought was deathly dull while growing up must have been built on sozzled debauchery. It was a festival every day in these parts.

Now a fairly affluent commuter town, Ware was once a busy stop-off point between London and Cambridge and still has the big old arches where horse-drawn carts would pull in - and who knows what went on in those inns after darkness fell? Leafy old Ware might have gone full-blown Game Of Thrones.

Now, The WareFringe won't be anything like that, but hopefully there's enough vim and vigour in the town nowadays to support six hours of stand-up. Well, four hours of stand-up but with half-hour breaks in between, and that was one of the boring-sounding-but-important issues Terry and I moved onto in a follow-up chat last week (over a couple of pints in another rather nice potential venue, the Saracen's Head): how long should an all-dayer's gaps be?

Too long between shows and people might get restless and wander off entirely, but you don't want to rush the next act's set-up time, if they need it: and stand-up nowadays often does. It can be a lot more elaborate than just handing over a mic.

Actually, one of the unforeseen pleasures having booked in the acts is asking them about any special requirements. That's probably a nightmare with rock stars, but at Fringe level you tend not to get asked for perfect-temperature Krug or a certain colour of Smarties. Instead you'll get a friendly mail back from, say, Sooz Kempner or Paul F Taylor - the first two names on my particular teamsheet - with a little logistical nugget about their show that's enough to remind you why you wanted to bring these unique talents to Ware in the first place. I wish this had been on here when I was, say, 15.

And that's another issue worth asking the acts about early on: is there an age limit? I was chatting to a venue owner outside a WIP gig he was hosting recently, when he intercepted a dad-and-daughter walking in, and politely checked the latter's age. "12" said the dad, so they proceeded, as that was the loose limit the act in question had suggested.

All seemed well as he strolled on stage, located the child and said hello - then asked her age. "11!" she squealed, at which news I imagine the venue owner - and the kid's dad - both immediately facepalmed. Thankfully the comic in question then did a largely 11-friendly set.

More alarming is the realisation that - having sorted your line-up - you now have to publicise it. What actually works these days? Is it still worth hassling the local paper or that curious magazine-cum-housing-brochure whose circulation mainly seems to be people awaiting haircuts? Do shop window posters make any difference, or flyers on their counters? And does randomly flyering people actually work?

We shall see. As I write this there are three weeks to go - nope, two now I've left it a few days to finish it - and the badgering begins in earnest.

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Read Part 3