I got a new job. The job is in Palo Alto, California, a city which is 1130 miles from Helena, further if you dog-leg around Blackfoot Idaho to avoid a thunderstorm on your motorcycle and give the podunk little piggies of Shoshone a chance to threaten to impound the bike.

But I'd already opened submissions for the festival and taken people's money and engaged venues. And I wasn't going to prove correct the facebook comments that said my festival seemed like a scam. Besides, the festival is the only thing that's kind of cool about me - the YouTube comments will tell you just how bad my comedy is.

Fortunately a local friend of mine agreed to help. She and her boyfriend coordinated with the venues and we were able to put together a schedule that got everybody the 3 sets I think make a festival worthwhile. Moreover, she had recently opened an event space, which became the venue where we had the headliner shows.

Last year I had a pretty substantial grant from the local hotel tax district, and a sponsorship from a local ISP. This year the grant wasn't available for summer events, so we pushed it to November, and then I proceeded to miss the deadline in the chaos of the move. The ISP didn't get back to me. Oops.

Without sponsorship dollars, I couldn't just blindly throw money at ads. I knew that last year's ads hadn't all been productive, so figuring out where to cut them and how to use the ad dollar more effectively was important. Now I know about site visits versus re-targeting, and how Eventbrite is maddeningly awful at reporting conversions, and Facebook doesn't attribute things correctly because of course attribution is hard. Ultimately I spent around $1,300 on Meta ads this year against $6,000-ish last year, I spent $0 on Google against $6,000-ish last year, and we still drove about the same revenue.

I didn't do T-shirts. That part I'm gonna make sure we do next year. Seeing people in the 2025 shirts feels good and I'm gonna be missing out on that for the 2026 crew. Unacceptable.

Work got crazy right at the beginning of October. We re-wrote the entire system my team had worked on for the year before I joined, and we did it in a month. This made me look like a shining beacon of cross-functional collaboration, delivery, and quality. It also meant that I just kinda didn't notice when the vendor didn't ship the spare batteries I bought. Where are my tripods? Sorry, guys.

After the month of madness I went in-country to Haiti for a week to get live feedback and fix any bugs. I was originally going for the entire month of November, modulo the week of the festival, when I needed to be in Montana. There were no bugs. I don't have to go back. But I did manage to pick up some revenge which can't be Montezuma's because he lived on a different landmass. The frequent visits to the indoor plumbing started once I got back to the States. Those weren't so bad. The accompanying brain fog was bad, and I was pretty well exhausted, which kept me from enjoying the after-headliner hangs.

In order to make sure I had enough battery to film for Xander Beltran (Thursday headliner) and Reena Calm (Friday) I didn't get as much video for the festival comics as I wanted to, a matter exacerbated by the aforementioned battery non-delivery.

Saturday my truck developed a misfire and so I couldn't get the cameras between venues effectively. I ran around on foot. My friends transported the PAs when we needed to transport the PAs.

Fortunately a number of comics had brought cameras of their own, notably Cooper Patterson and Young Kim, who filmed sets for the other comics on the shows.

Oh, and they turned the airplanes off! Remember that? Some omics en route couldn't make it. Other comics left early to drive since they weren't confident they could fly home and make it back to work on time. A local comic from Bozeman hit a deer and totalled his car and couldn't make it back for his Saturday spots. So I had to shuffle comics around on the lineup to fill in; on one show we ended up with five comics instead of six.

But it was magical. The local audience showed up. Shows I thought would be empty were full. Myq Kaplan brought the absolute fire headlining Saturday night. Comics and venue operators and audience members showered me and one another with praise. It was a triumph. I'm not even sure I want to tell jokes anymore; it is much more fun to do the rest of this, the he part where the shows are made.

TL:DR;

Good:

• Many good shows

• Comics had a good time

• I learned to be more effective with ad dollars

• We proved that delegation can work and I can provide the booking and ad infrastructure remotely while local boots-on-ground handle the in-person logistics

Bad:

• One bad show where the venue didn't turn off the football game

• The facebook comments are still gonna call me a scammer and tell me my comics are bad

• Sapovirus doesn't have a medication and you just gotta sleep and hydrate

• I need to just grab a bunch of Vixia G70s and give up on the Canon C300s which are hard for other people to operate and have increasingly obscure peripherals

• I need to chase down sponsors

• I need to make T-shirts

• The government is full of incompetent nincompoops who turn off the airplanes at inopportune moments

I know he’s in LDN for the time being but he doesn’t have any deets regarding his sets.

Obvs deliberate as he’s working on his next hour.

But yeah, would love to see him on the casual.

Any ideas, London people ?

I’m a stand-up comedian and I have a performance in two days that I really want to do, but my anxiety is currently through the roof.
The weird part is that I performed for years without basically any stage fright. I genuinely loved being on stage and felt very comfortable there. Then I had one performance where I briefly blanked on my material, and after that I suddenly developed really intense performance anxiety.
Since then, before some stand-up gigs I get extremely anxious for days in advance. I get exhausted, nauseous, sometimes feel detached/dissociated, and my brain constantly plays out worst-case scenarios like:
what if I go on stage and can’t think clearly?
what if I completely blank?
what if I’m so nervous I can’t speak?
what if I start crying or have a panic attack on stage?
The frustrating thing is that once I’m actually on stage, I usually do manage to collect myself. I might be very nervous at the beginning, but after the first laughs I normally calm down and start enjoying myself. So my actual performances usually go much better than the anxiety beforehand predicts.
I’m also in therapy and have been working on this for quite a while, so I’m not looking for “just do more gigs” or “just breathe” as the only advice.
I’m especially interested in people who have experienced really intense anticipatory performance anxiety or panic before performing:
What helped you in the final 1–2 days before a performance?
How do you stop constantly mentally rehearsing the worst-case scenario?
And if you’re extremely nervous when you first get on stage, what helps you stay externally focused instead of monitoring yourself and thinking “oh shit, I’m still nervous”?
I’m trying to get to a point where I can think: “Maybe I’ll be nervous, maybe I’ll even mess up, but I can handle whatever actually happens.”
Would really appreciate hearing from people who have dealt with something similar.

I’ve been doing standup in La for about 7 months and will be visiting NYC for the next 2 weeks. Any recs? I’m excited to try comedy in a new place.

Makes you realize what kind of comedic powerhouse the guy is. We like to talk about who the best young comics are and Bo burnham is still younger than Gillis and already feels like an old comedy legend. Kind of mind blowing how talented you can be at such a young age.

^

Hello everyone!

My name is Liam, and with my writing partner Matt, we've developed a comedy news sketch radio program for WCPT 820 AM Chicago called Hamburger Action News Ultra Team 6. The show takes a format similar to Weekend Update, where we trade headline news jokes and comedy sketch interviews on topical subjects. In order to keep the program just being two of our voices for a half hour, we are reaching out to the stand up community to help out.

If you have a tight 3-5 minutes on a topical subject- ie. data centers, blue wave, Flock cameras, and would want to record a segment, feel free to reach out. Bonus points if you are a local Chicago comic, I can plug any upcoming shows you have. I figure we can set up a Zoom meeting, introduce you as a field reporter, and record your segment and put in on the air. Our first episode should be coming out sometime in the next two weeks, and we are planning ahead for the next few shows this year.

I understand nobody works for free, and although we are broke radio operators doing this show for the helluvit, I'd be happy to Venmo any willing participants $15.

Any interested parties, be sure to send me a DM

I really want to say F it and try an open mic standup routine. I just worry if only close friends/family find me funny. Can anyone give advice on reaching out to a crowd on humorous stuff or if it’s best just to say whatever and figure out if people like your material? Anything, anyone regretted what they did for their show? What should I stay away from?

I have a good bit of material built up and can vary it through different spots but you need to repeat bits over and over to sharpen them. Im gonna start doing a few open mics, will that apprehension disappear once i start getting a few laughs (optimistic)?

RIP Blue Ridge Comedy Club

Anybody else felt like his set was way shorter than usual? Started late around 9:20 wrapped up an hour later including opener. Super funny guy just felt it was shorter than expected

Just wondering if anyone has a list of NJ mics during the week. Preferably Monday & Tuesday nights? Also maybe include if you have to pat to get in/go up. I know some dudes have some spread sheets. Anything helps. And no i cant make it to the city. Not an option for me at this time. Much love, thanks

https://youtu.be/4QOuU30FabM?is=z1fp8J1CW6JFKRXp

Photo attached.

I am trying to find the name of Nick Mullen's opener when he performed in Fort Worth last month. I have her autograph and a photo but cannot make it out.

Her set was HILARIOUS, and I think she had the funniest joke of the night (Nick's set was 5/5 but she had a bit that had me losing it).

I want to watch more of her material and support her stand-up.

Thanks.

EDIT SOLVED ITS Monarey Martinez

CHECK HER OUT

I went to see Lucas Zelnick in Brisbane last night, and my takeaway was that he perhaps wasn’t entirely prepared for the differences between Australian and American humour. Has anyone ever seen this before?
I actually find him really funny and bought tickets because I’d enjoyed his crowd work doing the rounds on TikTok. He sold out two shows in little Brisbane and pulled in a lot of young people which was great to see, but I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for him throughout the show. He seemed acutely aware of the crowd’s reactions (or lack thereof) and repeatedly commented on them, which only seemed to make him more self conscious as the set went on.
That said, I do think there’s something a little tone deaf about building much of your set around being a wealthy kid from New York and then spending an uncomfortable amount of time making fun of an audience member from middle class Australia who works in disability support - a thankless and particularly low paying profession. It came across as more crass than clever, particularly in front of an Aussie audience.
I don’t necessarily think he’s a bad comedian at all, he had some great moments. I just don’t think his particular brand of humour translated especially well to the room, and it felt like he struggled to adjust when the audience wasn’t responding the way he’d anticipated.
I’ve never seen a cultural humour divide like that, but it was really interesting! I hope he doesn’t beat himself up too much about it, we can certainly be a tough crowd.

I’m typically writing 20 second to 60 second bits but this is a longer one for me. Would love any feedback you have on this one.

I’ve been doing stand up for a while and I enjoy it. But I’m sick of other comedians. I’m sick of the low hanging fruit jokes and “roasting”, it’s all so tiresome, especially at open mics. I know networking is half the game but I can’t do it anymore. And I think my career is suffering a little because of it tbh. Any advice?

I just booked my first feature set in a smaller scene. They want me to do 20 minutes which will be the longest set I've ever done. I have alot of jokes on random topics and only a couple of "longer" bits that will only fill out a few minutes. I feel like I would be much more comfortable with some kinda guide to refer to if I miss a joke I wanted to tell. I also have a mix of tamer jokes and edgy jokes so I want to be able to adapt if one isn't working as well as the other. Im good about not reading off the notes I just need a sheet with a few words to remember which joke it is. What kinda thing is acceptable in this situation?

I find myself lying, mentioning that I know famous people in sets. Not even jokes I just name drop out of nervousness, I guess because I think it'll help?

Like I mentioned being in Texas and then said I was hanging out with Rogan and Alex Jones randomly, then transitioned to a joke unrelated to them.

How bad is this? Am I the only one who does this unironically?

I'm from New Hampshire and I'm a major fan of Comedian Juston Mckinney. I'm hoping to hear some feedback on how You feel about Him, what bits of His do You like? I've seen him in person many times & I believe His fame should be greater.