By Creig Ewing
One thing every comedy club manager or show booker sweats over daily is how many people are going to going be in the audience.
Not every comic has a following that can fill rooms, but everyone can promote shows.
Bookers love when comics pitch in and promote shows successfully, but they hate it when comics make promotional posts that seem designed to sabotage shows.
Please promote your comedy shows, but don’t do these things, which I see all too often:
Say the show is going to be filled with vile debauchery
Unless you are the headliner, you don’t speak for the show. You are one comic on it.
Believe it or not, some people may not want to go to a showcase if they believe all the comics will be exploring bestiality or whatever your thing is.
You can speak for yourself and what a wild and crazy person you are, but you don’t speak for all the comics on the show.
Be overly humble
Self-effacing humor can work well on stage, but not so much when promoting.
I see posts like this all the time:
“I may not be funny and I don’t know if any of these other comics are, but come out anyway, spend $10 and find out.”
You think that’s how P.T. Barnum drummed up a crowd?
Act like you’re excited about the show and assume that it will be a good time.
Promote just to comics
People post their shows in Facebook groups specifically for comics all the time. They also promote open mics with the goal of just getting comics to be there.
Give comics a heads up, but promote the shows to potential audience members. If you can get actual audience members to your open mics, you won’t have any trouble getting comics to show up.
Wait until the day of the show to promote
Sure, a lot of tickets are sold the day of shows, unfortunately. But you should start promoting shows at least a week out. You want to get the show in people’s minds before they make other plans.
Promote multiple shows at once
A post listing all your upcoming shows or your open mic “tour” are fine. But if you have a couple shows in a week at different places promote them separately.
If the promoter gave you a flyer for a show, and you use that flyer and also mention that you’re also at another show in town and give details on that, the booker who made the flyer is not going to like that. Trust me.
Post your shows separately, it’s more effective anyway.
Guilt people into coming to a show
Another common post is asking people to come to a show to “support local comedy.” That’s like asking for people to come to your daughter’s third-grade dance recital.
Encourage people to come to the show because they are going to laugh and have fun.
What you SHOULD do to promote
When anyone posts about a show you’re a part of or a venue you want to support, interact with the post — like it, comment, whatever, to increase the engagement for the post.
Post on multiple social media apps — Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.
Don’t limit your promoting to simply sharing someone else’s post about the event. Write your own post. You’re a creative person, right?
Create a video promoting a show if that’s your thing.
If you get a flyer with your image on it from the promoter, use it. Improve on it even.
If social media is not your thing, text people, email, post flyers around town.
Have a great show! Hope it sells out, you dog-diddler!
Thanks Creig, i was guilty of promoting multiple shows. Great advice.