Don’t PAY for a Class to get Experience
Never pay for a comedy class that claims to make you funnier as there is no such thing. You’re supposed to suck at first and that’s part of becoming great. Unless a class is going to teach you how to produce some tangible skill, don’t fall for a stage time scam. Good audiences are hard to find at open mics but not that hard.
Free workshops and writers rooms are totally cool. Comics helping comics is GREAT! Classes that charge however are typically a rip off or complete scam altogether. Especially if they charge hundreds of dollars for stage time and require your friends to buy a graduation ticket. Why pay for stage time when you could buy equipment and start an open mic for less than the cost of tuition? After all there’s is no replacement for experience on stage. You have to do it 100s of times to get good anyway so why start by paying for it? Plus, most comedians will give you notes at open mic if you ask them to… for free! Comedy classes insulate you with fake laughter from friends and family there to support you no matter how badly you do and that gives you a false confidence and a skewed work ethic. Plus the money classes make off “students” displaces working comics that clubs should be paying us. They allow clubs to exploit the talent pool rather than pay us all a decent wage for our work. Especially when the audience is paying to be there. Many clubs could care less about the integrity of the art they showcase, they just want to turn an easy buck. The same can be said of the hack comics that host them… they just want steady work. The result is a hobbled nightmare of a mess that’s part open mic, part bringer, part comedy class. The students are gullible enough to pay for stage time meanwhile the club doesn’t have to pay a lineup… just pay whatever hack wants the credit for hosting it and keep the rest. Just take a look at how bad some of these “graduates” fail to deliver even a semblance of originality. I don’t judge the students taken in by these rackets. After all its held at a REAL comedy club and it’s not their fault the teacher didn’t do their job… they really don’t know any better. Remember, this is what $400+ of comedy education gets you…
Thought Experiment
Let’s say you wanted to organize one of these “classes” with a tuition of $400 per student for 15 students… that’s $6000 and we haven’t even gotten to tickets. Yes that’s right, after a few weeks of meeting once a week for 2 hours there will be a “graduation show” (usually at a “B” room comedy club) and you and your classmates will be expected to pressure your friends and family into buying a roughly $20 ticket to attend. If each of you brings just 4 friends that’s another $1200 and it’s not uncommon for graduation shows to see entire families show up. But let’s keep it low and assume each student brings 4, now we’re up to 7.2K. Oh but don’t forget… this is a Comedy Club so that means there’s a 2 items minimum for every seat which means the ticket price easily just doubled! What a nice way to thank the people nice enough to come support you! If everyone only ordered drinks and no food that’s another $8400 in revenue that you just handed to them!
Now let’s see if we couldn’t produce something better on paper, just for kicks. For $750 you could buy a 4k Sony handycam and a $120 shotgun mic to record better audience laughter than they probably will. Your average live music venues runs about $500 for private rentals and many have a stage just as big as that “big name” comedy club. In fact you could buy that camera rig and spend 2k to rent an entire 200 seat theater complete with a stage, sound, lights, and still have 4.2k leftover. Plenty of money lets over to hire the same or better comedian to host your graduation for a $100. After all $80 would be a windfall to most open mic hosts and that’s exactly what this is, a giant pay for play open mic. Open mic hosts with no sound equipment often make less than $40. But lest say you drop $100, now you have 4.1k to split 15 ways. That’s a $273 rebate each! If each of you brought 8 people and returned the camera rig to Best Buy when you were done everyone would make $26 profit! Sell the remaining 80 seats out theater out and you each make $132 and the best part is you earned it. You made the investment, you promoted the show and you performed for the same audience you would have in the class… hell you even saved your friends and family over half of what they would have spent having to buy the 2 item minimum and dinner!
Paid classes, bringer shows, and festival submissions don’t teach you how to be a comedian, they only teach you how to pay for stage time despite doing all the work and financing the entire production for less than nothing… you literally pay them for the privilege of doing all the work for them. Don’t feed the cannibals and do it for YOURSELF!
If you are interested in starting your own show check out our production course. It has all the tools you need to crunch the numbers and pick the right venue and do it right the first time.