One of the greatest milestones in any comedian’s life is creating their own comedy show – with their name painted big and bold in front of it. That, however, can be a treacherous road but a fulfilling one, nonetheless. So, read on to know how you can create your own comedy show and most importantly – make money while you are at it!
It’s a well-established fact that there is a huge difference between creating funny content on social media platforms and actually doing comedy!
While one requires a quick, hardly 2-minutes long content where you perform in front of your phones with no instant reaction to know how well you performed, the other requires you to sit, study, observe, and have material enough to last at least 15 minutes on stage, in front of a live audience in most cases!
This way the comedian knows how perfectly and horribly the joke landed in a blink of an eye.
The Pre-Show Preparation
The expert in everything was once a beginner. Once you have discovered that you have a sense of humor worthy enough to put on stage and decided to take a plunge, you need to sit and work on your material.
After all, what is a good comedian without a good set of jokes and material at his disposal? For that, you have got to understand your style of comedy and develop the idea of your show around that.
Whether your style is more of an anecdotal comedy, character, or even improvisational comedy – you need to make be clear about it yourself first, before you even step up on the stage.
Now, with a clear idea of the kind of comedy you are planning to put in the show, you can move towards developing an idea for your show and you need to have the best of people and staff around yourself for this. While many may think comedy on stage is a one-man show, the behind the scenes of the comedy world is quite different.
You’d need a staff of writers, who’d sit together with you and throw ideas, jokes, and puns around and get your creatives juices flowing. You can also work together with your friends from this field and take their help for the same too.
This way helps you get some amazing ideas for your set and your show as a whole.
While you are at the writing stage, don’t be afraid of writer’s block or hold back from writing and re-writing your material several times – it is bound to happen. Getting your comedy to hit the bull’s eye on the first try is hard, so write and write until you succeed.
Also, don’t hold just one person’s opinion or laugh as an approval for the material – run it through a few people for a more diverse and genuine review. Make your openings noticeable and the bits in your set crisp and extra funny.
Also, remember that your transitions from one joke to another need to be clean and look effortless, and lastly, the final joke or the closer of your act needs to make the audience want to see your show again.
Pro Tip: Conversational comedy resonates well with the audience, so while you are writing your material, memorizing, and even performing it for the 20th time, try to not make it look like a routine.
Lastly, always check the timing of your humor. Give your audience a moment to laugh at your joke, stretch, and edit your script according to it. Don’t take too long to plunge into your comedic side and make people lose interest.
Always start light but don’t let that prolong enough for your audience’s eyes to wander. Keep all this in mind while you are still at the table with your material and an open mind for reconsideration for all possible script changes.
Getting Started!
Now that you are ready to rock and roll, the first and foremost thing that you got to do to start your own show is scouting your area to get to know what the comedic demography is like there. Check out the local comedy clubs, pubs, clubs, or cafes with open nights and put yourself out there.
You have to remember that at this stage before you step out to get your show started, you need to have a five-minute set ready for yourself. The reason behind this being that no established comedy scene will give you more time than this, so you legit have to be at your comedic best for those five minutes – think of it as your whole career depending on those five minutes.
If it’s an established scene, then you can dive in but if it’s still in the budding stage, then the story would be a little different and hectic. Try performing weekly or monthly at these places, get more participants on board to draw more crowds.
I’d recommend running a monthly show initially, for getting enough material for a weekly performance can be quite hard. This way you’d get to know and understand your local audience and most importantly have a place to practice – a perfect head start for your show.
Coming back, to get any show on the road, you’d need a space to perform and people to perform in it. Let’s be realistic, people in the audience won’t be too keen to just come down for a 5 to 10-minute show by a new comedian – you’d need more people on board to get started, to keep people engaged and interested in the event in the first place.
Pick the Right Venue
Then comes the next big decision – picking the right venue. You can have the best of artists but the wrong venue can ensure a poor turnout.
So, as I mentioned earlier, check your local comedy scene. See if there are clubs or cafes already hosting such shows, if yes, then talk them into putting you out there too.
If not, try convincing them to let you put on a show – help them organizing the whole gig to the T – it’s more for you than them anyway. So hunt down local bars, coffee houses, and cafes to begin with.
You won’t obviously be an instant hit with sold-out shows but allow yourself to breathe and makes mistakes while you are at it. Allow yourself to be a beginner, no one starts from the top!
As I mentioned before, you’d need more comedians on board to get the show running – for you can’t be the one performing alone for an hour! You’d need to make connections and network out.
Attend shows, meet people in your field, get talking, and then get them all together to perform. Don’t try to run after big names, especially if you are running a show for the first time. Besides the budgetary disaster, it could all go out of hand if you try to accommodate a big name in your local scene right away.
So, try looking for local but good talent. There will be many rejections and hardships while you are at it but being tough-skinned is one of the first qualities of any comedian!
Now, once you have it all a little under control, here comes the big question – what to name your show? While Shakespeare might say, ‘What’s in a name?’, you need to make a good impression with your show, so you ‘do’ need a good name for it.
Understand your locality and people attending your show and try to name the show with something that connects with them. Don’t go overboard with the naming and trying naming it something catchy yet easy. It can sound a little intimidating but think of it as naming you baby – you definitely don’t want to take that lightly!
Here comes the most important part of creating a show – promoting it! For the first show, you need all your friends and family and their friends and family in the audience to get it running – after all word of mouth is the oldest yet the most sort out promoting technique in all the books!
Promoting the Show
While it would be easy to get the first show running, the real drill starts once you need to attract the real audience. Put up posters in the markets, cafes, and residential areas near your venue. Put out word for the show at least two weeks before the show at the venue.
Go the old fashioned way – hand out fliers, contact your local radio stations, newspaper advertisements. You’d have to go all out, for you never know where you might just get the place to advertise.
Then, obviously, you have the social media route. Make a Facebook event page, spread the word through Instagram and Twitter advertisements, and the venue’s official social media pages. As I said – go all out!
Youtube is another great way to promote your show- record your shows and post these videos on youtube after doing a little editing and promote your comedy shows there.
Podcasting is another great way for promoting your show. I am a big believer that every comedian needs a podcast as it can benefit a comedian in many ways.
Don’t Panic
Once you are at the big night – don’t panic and get a head start early. Reach the venue early, get the mic, light, and sound checks done to avoid any troubles later.
Sort out the line-up and make sure you have all the artists on time and give enough space in between each act. It’s all about the timings while performing or while scheduling the performances, so start light and save the headliner for later.
Make Note of Everything
While the shows on, you need to be at your observant best. Make note of everything that worked and what didn’t – the jokes, the lights, the sound system – everything. Give your feedback to all the artists and take some from them as well, also encourage and appreciate them while you are at it.
Talk to your staff about what got wrong in the show or you can even talk to the audience privately, they could give you a bunch of great improvement ideas which you can apply next time.
Also, don’t forget to be respectful and helpful to the venue staff and team – it helps build loyalty. These observations would help a happy sailing in future shows.
Let The Money Roll In
Now, after all the hard work, I all expect to bore some fruit, don’t we? So, for starters, once the show picks up, but not from the very first show, you can talk to the management of the venue you are performing at to give you a cut in the percentage of bar sales on the days of your shows or to put a cover on the entry.
If you are performing at bars or cafes initially, you can ask for a percentage in the show ticket prices or the cover that the place is charging.
You can talk to event ticket booking apps and websites to put out your show on their portal. This way, you can get more attraction and also, direct revenue of the ticket sales, minus the website’s cut (of course!).
This would work once the show is a hit, but you can always keep notes for later. Perform at other venues – other cafes, comedy clubs, colleges, fests, and more. This way your show will pick up more audiences and gain more popularity.
Merchandising is another way you can make money with your show. Getting the punch/hook up lines of your set printed on tees, funny mugs and such merchandise always catches people’s attention. So, you can try doing this too – once the show actually works that is.
So, put together a team, make your family and friends your audience – take their positive and negative feedbacks in stride and incorporate the changes in your material, don’t let any review get to your head.
Always be on the lookout for a viable and popular venue, get together other comedians with the same aspirations and comedic sense as yours, spread the word by all possible means at your disposal, cash in all the success by taking cuts in profits from the venue you are performing at, and lastly – don’t forget to enjoy yourself and have lots of fun while you are at it.
After all, when you aren’t happy with what you are doing, how’s that going to translate into your performance? So put your best funny foot forward while you are on stage!
Bottom Line
So, now you are set to go for your first comedy show. Don’t get too excited about this and don’t panic about this, just stay normal and you’ll get everything done quickly and easily. Every successful comedian started this way, you are not new, just follow their path of success and you’ll reach success one day too.
To learn more about making money with comedy shows check out How To Produce Comedy Shows For Fun & Profit: A Guide To Making Money In Stand Up Comedy.