Interesting Show Formats

[Cerak]

I've been producing a weekly local show, and while the shows we often put on are basic stand up show cases with an MC, an opener, a "feature," and a "headliner" (I put those in quotes because, really, everyone does about 10/15 min each), it seems like our crowds really like when we branch out and put on shows with different formats.

One of our most popular shows is a monthly showcase where we have 15 comics doing 5 min sets each. Now, obviously, I get that the more people you can pack into a show, the more likely it is that one or two of their friends will want to to come check them out, and BOOM it's like magic how a crowd develops -- but I was just wondering if there are other show formats to explore.

Things like:

• a contest
• an improvised stand up show like The Setlist in LA
• a live Bunk-ish game show where comedians are the contestants
• LADIEZ NIIIIIIGHT!
• other theme nights that don't rely on gender

Stuff like that.

So, I guess what I'm asking for is just for interesting show formats that you've been a part of, or you would like to be a part of if you had the chance. I'm a performer and a producer so I work really hard to find the middle ground between what an audience would like and what the comedians would find fun.

Any suggestions?

[Burnside]

"but I was just wondering if there are other show formats to explore"

Nope.

[ErikNielsen]

Pretty much agreed here. If you're in a small town, and you don't have any legit headliners or anyone who's a draw, the last thing you want is to start futzing around with alternate formats.

The most efficient way to book a good show is to book good comedians and let them do their proven material. Anything else -- a limit on what comedians you can book or a limit on what those comedians can do -- is an obstacle. Don't throw obstacles in your way. Book the best acts you can and let them do the best stuff they can. That could include someone doing a character, or maybe a sketch or two, if you know people who specialize in those things. But even that's dicey. And you shouldn't TELL people to do that -- let them come to you with the pitch, and then decide whether you want it.

The only exception to this is if:

a) you have so much top-tier talent to work with that you can make their lives difficult, throw an arbitrary complication at them which they need to overcome in order to be funny, and still expect them to excel.
b) you have so much local competition that you need to bring in a gimmick to stand out.

And that's not an either-or -- you need BOTH of those to be true before it's even time to think about doing a gimmick show. Other than that, there are no shortcuts. Do the best show you can.

And yeah, even if you did something like this, contests are obviously bogus. Don't be bogus.

[nixonjames]

if/when i do my off night show at a club I envision the following format to make it a mix of newer/veteran.

Host - 10min off the top 5-7min mixed in if necessary.
Solid Closer Skill Level - 15min
Guest Spot - 7-8min
Guest Spot - 7-8min
Guest Spot - 7-8min
Guest Spot - 7-8min
"Headliner/Closer" - 25-30min

I envision this for a Thursday night at a club show that I book though and there's a likelihood I'd probably make the guest spots bring 4 and try to pay my non-host opener & closer. And sell the show as my picks of talent yadda yadda. I like it as a sorta suedo showcase that reminds me of what they did on the Evening at the Improv shows.

[ErikNielsen]

It's almost invariably a mistake to throw in a 15-minute set before a bunch of showcase sets. Once people start doing long sets, the audience starts to settle in, and reversing gears on them that way is a real problem. It makes the show seem rushed. There's a reason every club arranges sets in increasing order by length -- it's not just something someone came up with and it gets followed blindly. They do it that way because the other way doesn't work.

But other than that... four 8-minute sets plus a 10-minute set plus 15 plus 30 = 1:27. Seems like something that should end up in the 1:30 to 1:45 sweet spot, unless someone runs the light or the host gets talky, so that's good.

Obviously don't run a bringer show. OBVIOUSLY. Come on, you know that.

[KeithTalent]

A good alternative to some wacky high-degree-of-difficulty format might be just a sort of vague theme for the night. A local guy put on a show a few months back called SlowJamz...one guy did 5 as a sort of ladies' man character and they played some Isaac Hayes or whatever but other than that it was just a standup show.

[tjaxkson]

I ran a small show for a while where each night had an entirely different theme- these are the ones we got to do:
"Origins": SOLID, good comics do the first five minutes they EVER wrote, and then their most recent five minutes.
"Hacks": Each comic, in advance, is given a comedic stereotype to write and perform their whole set as- i.e., cocky showboat, blue collar, prop comic, angry ranting comic, etc.
"Momentum": Each comic gets a minute to get a good laugh. If they do, a bell is dinged and they get an additional thirty seconds to get another laugh. If they fail to get a laugh, there's a buzzer and the next comic goes up, cycling through everyone til the show's over. The idea is that as long as a comic is getting laughs, they could potentially stay up for as long as they have material.

[KeithTalent]

That last one sounds fun/terrifying

[tjaxkson]

It was pretty fun, especially since we needed some kind of standard to judge "a good laugh" by, so, as the host, I got to act as a judge and basically rate, on the spot, whether I thought a joke was good or bad. Haha, kinda made me feel like a powerful asshole.

[Cerak]

We came up with a show idea today called Sight Gag where we book our usual three comedians (opener, feature, headliner) and then we have 2 local artists, and an art newbie (one of the hosts? an audience volunteer?) on stage, sitting with flip charts and markers, live-drawing the comedian sets. I'm hoping it'll end up with cool art to give our performers as an added thank you, a way to showcase some local artists in town, and -- with the artist format -- a built in rule of three joke in between comics of "good drawing," "good drawing," "silly, crappy drawing."

[ErikNielsen]

That... could work. It could also distract from the show -- in my experience, if a comic can't get the audience to look directly at him/her, it's very difficult to control momentum or timing. Having multiple sources of (attempted) humor really does shift the rhythm of the show away from the comedian, who really should be the one in command of that. I've done similar shows before, though, and they can be fun (if often sloppy). If you're dead-set on the idea of not getting out of the way and letting people do what they do, I guess this is a less problematic way of doing that than some methods would be.

[Cerak]

Hey Erik,

I totally agree, if the focus is away from the comedians, that's just a recipe for trouble.

Right now the plan is to have the draw-ers sitting off to the side (or possibly now in the front row of the audience), not showing the audience what they're drawing, and then the MC will check in with them after each comedian's set to see what was drawn.

My producing partner and I are big on experimenting, since we've got a weekly show in an odd timeslot. We're also trying to build relationships among other "scenes" in our towns and hopefully spread our reach on and off stage/bring new people to stand up who wouldn't otherwise come check out a show.

The show is happening tonight -- so whether it's a total, utter disaster or something the audience/performers enjoy, I'll make sure to letcha all know tomorrow.

[Cerak]

I'd give the Sight Gag show a B- in its current state.

We incorporated a doodling/drawing contest with the audience, which (like Erik mentioned) did distract the audience from laughing as hard as I think they would've without it. The weird thing is, though, that the doodles that were turned in were AWESOME pictures of everyone's jokes. So, people were really paying attention. Even though, during the show the comedians were kinda working it harder for laughs, afterwards they got to see a whole bunch of the audience's interpretation of what they said.

Here's an example. I have a joke about how inappropriate it is to say "carabiner" and, among a couple other jokes, here's what got drawn by an audience member:


The comedians, afterwards, gave the feedback that they enjoyed doing the show but I think, going forward, there are most certainly ways to tweak it. Specifically, less comics but longer sets. It was kinda stressful for the two local artists we had come in to draw up things in only 10 minutes. Also, just more communication on all fronts (comedians, artists, audience, etc) on what to expect and what is expected.

All in all, it was a fun night and it's a totally doable format -- as long as you have everyone on the same page.

[nixonjames]

So doing a slightly different format for a show tomorrow that I felt was interesting. Just an open mike with 10 slots where folks have to draw a topic from a hat 30 minutes before your set and whoever writes the best joke on their topic gets something. Not really a show or anything but an interesting way to promote an open mike on a night that a local open mike/weekend showcase room has had trouble keeping a regular show goin on.

[ErikNielsen]

"I mean, it completely defeats the purpose of HAVING an open mic, but aside from that, it's good, I guess?"

[nixonjames]

"I mean, it completely defeats the purpose of HAVING an open mic, but aside from that, it's good, I guess?"

Assuming that's to me, I dunno, given the context (which I hadn't provided) and all I think it makes sense for them to try it. Open Mikes that draw well have sign up sheets deep into the 30s an hour before start time. We need more shows that'll spread things out and I think this is a way to get a chunk of that committed to do it as well as lending potential weight to the show, as there're some pretty good folks 'taking the challenge' if you will.

It's basically a room run by two comics who are the bar staff at this lil lounge. They work there pretty much all week anyways and have built a neat lil room there. It can sometimes have a sort of 'lunatics running the asylum' feel but it started off as a Thursday open mike (in the pure sense ). It's literally under the shadow of Fenway tho so they can't do shows during Sox home games as the lounge has a regular/recurring crowd for those games. But they've still managed, despite gaps through the summer, to take their Thursday night open mike and now do 2 booked shows with a paid closer (roughly 8(host)/8/5/7/10/10/30) and doing a door deal with the closer - these shows were drawing a regular paid audience of 30+ and they were packing that thing to the point the thursday open mike got 20+ in attendence, they also have a recurring but not weekly sunday open mike attended only by comics 90% of the time and a weds slot that has had a few failed attempts, there was a show/podcast, a few shots at themed open mikes and alot of weeks with no show. So basically they're just giving people with ideas a shot, my buddy picked this b/c it's not to distracting, fairly simple/easy, and requires that peppered throughout the open mike (the first 30 min of which will be straight off the list as ev1 who's doin the challenge gets 30 min to work somethin up). These shows have had trouble generating enough comics to actually have a show/mike that can build to a solid night on weds so he's hoping if he can get 10 to do it that's 10 there as well as maybe a shot at getting a few others... It's a good night cuz one of the bigger local mikes is having an anniversary show the same night so there won't be stagetime available at that 'show' which will influence where people go that night.

-----
One of my favorite new shows in town is an independent booked free/weekday show in a bar that has incorporated a wrestling motif/card into their show. Basically instead of just a showcase the 2 co-hosts set up 'battles' between the next two performers and the audience response picks a winner. It's presented and executed in a playful enough way that no one's feelings are hurt. But they make people actually work up to title bouts and set up weird staged matches (one coming up which is all mano y mano roasts) but they have a belt and everything and if you win one week you don't necessarily have to defend it that week because not every week has a title bout, it's a lot of fun and takes advantage of a smallish crowd at the bar on a tuesday anyways.

[ErikNielsen]

To me, the point of an open mic -- the only point -- is to test and polish new material. An open mic that requires that you do something that isn't your material isn't an open mic... it's a bunch of comics/aspiring comics playing games.

And all this is not to say that some people don't write using similar methods -- prompts or whatever. Personally, I couldn't imagine sitting down and saying to myself, "okay, pickles! What's funny about pickles?" But I know some people do something very similar, so presumably it works for them. But that's different. That's self-generated, and you can do it as many times as you want and weed out the ones that go anywhere.

The thing is, I've done a lot of shows with "comics have to come up with their jokes based on this prompt" as part as the premise. Some of them with the prompt a week in advance, some of them with the prompt at the beginning of the night. There's even a pretty successful show called Set List here in LA, where the comics get the prompts as they go up on stage, and have to improvise off them as they're displayed as an overhead projector. (I haven't done that one... a bridge too far for me, I'm afraid.) Some where everyone has the same broad topic to work from, some where everyone has separate topics.

I've enjoyed them -- they're frequently a lot of fun for the comics and for the audience... as shows. As a means of generating material, they're almost invariably useless, because the comic knows that they're writing to a prompt, and the audience knows that they're writing to a prompt, and so the comic frequently writes material that presupposes the prompt as a prompt -- material that only fits together or make sense if the audience knows "the host told him backstage to write three minutes about pickles." (The material at these shows also tends to benefit/suffer from the "improv bump", where audiences are likely to be a lot more forgiving of slipshod construction because they're grading on a curve.)

And that's kind of my point. Potentially a good idea for a show (with the right comics), a real hindrance for an open mic.

[ErikNielsen]

(That second show you mentioned sounds... potentially fun, but also way inside. Like, is there any way anyone would want to see that who didn't already know the comedians involved? I feel as though, like most shows that appeal almost exclusively to other comics and die-hard local comedy fans, it would ultimately have the effect of making an insular thing more insular. That's not what comedy needs, even if it is enjoyable to those people.)

[nixonjames]

I've heard great things about SetList and I'm guessing that would ultimately be the point if this generates some interest. I'm figuring it'll be too half-assed to turn into a regular show and it'll just go back to being whatever someone's trying that week. Hopefully now that baseball is over that room can generate more momentum like it did last year cuz they've started putting on very high quality shows on the weekends and have one of the most heavily attended mikes on thursday.

(That second show you mentioned sounds... potentially fun, but also way inside. Like, is there any way anyone would want to see that who didn't already know the comedians involved? I feel as though, like most shows that appeal almost exclusively to other comics and die-hard local comedy fans, it would ultimately have the effect of making an insular thing more insular. That's not what comedy needs, even if it is enjoyable to those people.)

Well I think people that go to bars don't mind hearing people make fun of each other generally speaking, so I'm guessing you'll get part of the nervousness from the idea of crowd work without the anxiety of 'you're next' should add to it. Generally the 'bouts' are just each person's set that week so it's a quasi contest w/out the group bitterness afterwards I think. From what I hear it's generated a regular patron turnout because they've been careful to make sure they're putting up really good talent. Hopefully when I'm done with my rec bball league i'll be able to stop by more and do a set sometime for a better report. (one side result was a series of parody wrestling characters and videos who then also make appearances on the show, my favorite Bizarro Liberaci - "I love vagina."