How comedians build a local audience out of open mics

Open mics give you stage time, not an audience, because the room is mostly other comedians. Building a following means collecting contact details from real punters at every gig you do, then eventually running your own night where the people who came are yours rather than the promoter's.

The open mic trap

New comedians are told to do as many open mics as possible, and that advice is correct for one purpose and useless for another.

Stage time makes you funnier. Nothing else does it faster, and there is no way round the two hundred gigs. But an open mic room is largely other acts waiting to go on, and playing to twelve comedians and three of their friends builds no audience at all.

So people do four years of open mics, become genuinely good, and discover they cannot sell forty tickets. The skill improved and the following did not, because nothing in the process was ever going to build one.

The fix is not to do fewer open mics. It is to run a second, parallel process from the beginning.

The three stages, and what each actually gives you

The middle row is where most comedians stall, and it is a comfortable place to stall. Paid spots feel like progress, and they are, but the audience belongs to whoever booked you and you have no way to reach them again.

What to do at every gig from now on

1. 1

   Talk to people afterwards

   Not other acts. Punters. The people who laughed and are standing near the bar afterwards are the beginning of an audience, and almost every comedian walks past them to talk to the other comedians.

2. 2

   Give them a way to hear about your next gig

   Anything you control. Whatever it is, it should take somebody five seconds and it should not depend on them remembering your name in three weeks.

3. 3

   Record the good gigs, honestly

   A recording of a real laugh in a real room is what gets you booked. A recording of an open mic where twelve comedians politely chuckle does not, and promoters can tell the difference instantly.

4. 4

   Keep a list of promoters and what happened

   Who booked you, how the gig went, when you last contacted them. Comedy runs on a small number of people who each run several nights, and being organised about it puts you ahead of most of the field.

The first two are the whole thing. Fifteen names from a good gig, thirty times a year, is a list of several hundred people within eighteen months, and that is enough to sell out a small room.

Getting paid spots

Promoters book for two reasons: you are funny enough that the audience has a good night, or you bring people. Early on you have neither, so the route in is being reliable.

• Turn up early, do your time, do not run over. Comedians who run over cost the promoter their curfew and are not rebooked, whatever they did on stage.
• Send a short, specific email with one good recording rather than a long one with links to everything.
• Ask once, then wait. Comedy promoters are booking months out and a follow-up every week is memorable for the wrong reason.
• Say yes to the badly paid weeknight gig in the awkward part of town. That is where the relationship starts.

Once you can bring people, say so with a number rather than a claim. A promoter who hears you can bring twenty and gets twenty will book you repeatedly. One who hears fifty and gets twelve will not.

Running your own night

The step that changes everything, and the one comedians delay for years because it feels presumptuous. It is not. Running a room is a job somebody has to do, and the person doing it is rarely the funniest act on the bill.

Take a small room on a quiet weeknight, book three or four acts who each have their own following, host it yourself. You get regular stage time, a room you control, an audience that becomes yours, and a reason for promoters to take your calls.

Keep the risk off yourself. Sell tickets in advance with a minimum that covers the room and the acts, and a deadline a week out. If it does not sell, nobody is charged and you have not paid for a room.

Then run it monthly on the same night. Regularity does most of the work, because after three or four months you are promoting who is on rather than explaining that the night exists.

The arithmetic of a small comedy night

Nobody is getting rich, and that is not the point at this stage. The break-even is nine people, which means the night almost cannot lose money, and that is what makes it repeatable every month for a year.

Pay the other acts before you pay yourself, every time, including the months where that leaves you with nothing. Word travels quickly among comedians about which nights settle up properly, and being the promoter who always pays is how you end up able to book people well above your own level.

What this will not do

A realistic two years

Year one, open mics constantly, collect names at every gig where real punters are present, get one good recording. Year two, paid spots where you can get them, and start your own monthly night in a fifty-capacity room.

By the end of that you have a tight twenty minutes, a few hundred contacts, a night that runs, and promoters who know your name. That is a considerably stronger position than four years of open mics alone, and the difference is entirely the list.