How to pick the best format for your venue.

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Whether it’s as ubiquitous as team trivia and karaoke, or as unique as stand-up and drag, businesses across the country have long used events to attract and satisfy customers. But what makes an event attractive? How does one consistently create events that retain the customers they attract? People’s entertainment habits ultimately rely on two basic trade-offs; exclusivity vs accessibility and novelty vs opportunity cost. A producer must take these factors into consideration when planning an event so that the ideal audience can be retained for an optimal duration of time.

Accessibility and exclusivity can be dictated by everything from price and scheduling of the event, to maturity level and drinking age. Novelty generally relates to how prevalent an event type is in a given area, while opportunity cost typically relates to how many total entertainment options there are in that same area. Each has their strengths and blind spots. Highly accessible events are best at mitigating a high opportunity cost market, but suffer from the lowest audience retention. Exclusive events have the highest audience retention rates, as the consumer subconsciously wants to get the most for their money, but their cost prohibitive nature can be limiting in a high opportunity cost market. Novel events have the highest potential for attracting a new customer base, but require higher production values to execute. Lower opportunity cost markets make our promotion budget more effective, but are nearly impossible to control. In our experience performance events provide the flexibility to reliably overcome the greatest number of possible scenarios.

Examples:

1) Christmas night. Despite being low in novelty and exclusivity, lots of people go to the movies seeking entertainment on holidays . This is attributable to the lowered opportunity costs associated with many businesses and entertainment options being unavailable. A variety show or holiday themed burlesque show with a charismatic comedian playing host would rate high in both novelty and exclusivity at such a time. Increase the accessibility of that same event by lowering the ticket price to just below that of a movie theater, and you have the recipe for sold out show.

2) Halloween. Between seasonal haunted houses, numerous parties, raves, and to a certain extent trick or treating obligations, we know the opportunity cost market is high. To overcome this we need an event that rates high in novelty and accessibility. Rather than a traditional performance or run of the mill costume contest, we could bill an interactive game show hosted by an outrageous burlesque or drag personality. Hiring fewer performers would reduce talent cost enough to offset the elimination of a cover charge, boosting the event’s accessibility. Door prizes and audience participation would give people less reason to party hop, and the event would be the perfect opportunity to promote our other upcoming showcases as we could give away tickets as prizes at essentially zero cost.

3) What if a national act like Bill Burr became available? The increased ticket price coupled with finite seating would certainly increase exclusivity, so right away we know that we need to book multiple shows and turnover the room to increase accessibility. The opportunity cost presented to local consumers would likely outweigh the possibility of not selling out but again we must consider the trade-offs. After all in a way novelty is actually low… Bill Performs all the time, and you can see him anytime you like on Netflix or YouTube. The question becomes can we book him at a time the opportunity cost presented to the consumer is 100% in our favor. Is there a music festival or a concert 50 miles away? Is it Super Bowl Sunday? These are the variables that define whether or not a performance will be viable.

Show Formats

Open Mic

Open mics (OM’s) vary widely in their execution. Some simply have a sign-up and run the list of names in order while others rearrange the performers. Some give comics equal time, others allocate more to select performers. If a mic becomes too crowded, the host may make the event a “bucket” mic, where comedians are chosen at random. While not hard fast rules, most OMs follow these standards. They;

1. Allow any participant regardless of skill level to sign-up.
2. Limit the event to a cut off time or number of performers.
3. Charge no admission to audience members or participants.

OM’s are typically the lowest price option but the highest potential cost option for a comedy event. While the venue may only pay a scant price to a single comedian to run, the lack of control can prove costly. Neglecting to attract good comedians invites big problems as bad comedians may “walk” regulars, costing you money. To mitigate this, Comedy Carousel offers a number of incentives to traveling comedians in order to attract higher caliber talent and offensive or combative comics are suspended or banned. The show will also enjoy a basic level of promotion via weekly online posts (FB groups, badslava.com, open-mics.com, etc). However, our full line up of billboard and targeted social media marketing is reserved for events with a >$150 budget.

Stand-up Showcase

Booked shows are those that have a defined line-up planned weeks or months in advance and guarantee compensation for seasoned comedians. Individual pay usually depends on the quality and notoriety of each performer, as this determines the amount of time each comedian will be contracted to perform. The better the comic, the longer the set. The longer the set, the higher the pay. Normally, booking a headline and feature comedian (far be it from that an entire lineup) costs much more than $200. The reason we’re able to charge such a price is our ability to cut a “door deal” with high caliber talent. Our reputation among working comedians is second to none. They know they can trust us to promote them and sell out a show so they don’t mind getting paid on the back end. So long as Comedy Carousel is in charge of selling tickets, your prices will remain low.

Regular Booked showcases are the lifeblood of the industry. They keep competent performers working and lure touring comics to visit your city more often. Booked shows motivate newer “green” comics to improve, eventually giving you access to reliable and competent local comics. Many venues eventually hold both a weekly open mic and a weekly or monthly showcase. This is due to the symbiotic relationship between the two. Open mics provide promotion opportunities for the showcase and give “open mic comics” a space to improve and get sharp enough to book.

Stand-Up Special

Specials are essentially showcases with much better and fewer comedians on the line up. They are recorded on high quality equipment with the express intention of being published, distributed, or sold. The format typically consists of a brief opener and feature comic followed by a headliner performing the vast majority of the time. They are milestones for everyone involved in the show. Audiences get to say “I was there”, venues get to say “it happened here”, and producers/performers get to own a piece of the product for life. Specials are great investments for venues too because they become publicity for the lifetime of the content. This is especially true if the content or performer is eventually picked up by a large distributor like Netflix, Comedy Central, HBO, Hulu, or Amazon. Even if a large firm isn’t the first to redistribute the content, it doesn’t mean that parts of the content won’t go viral on youtube or social media and get picked up months or years later when a performer breaks big. If done right, they attract more high caliber acts wishing to reproduce the same success for themselves and pretty quickly you’ll find your walls covered in the headshots of comedy’s biggest and best names. After a while the mystique created by such names transforms your venue into a lucrative piece of entertainment real estate. The most well known comedy clubs in NY and LA even require comedians to pay out of pocket and/or sign an agreement giving partial rights and ownership of the content to the venue owners themselves.

Variety Show

This format broadens the spectrum of entertainment to include other types of performers. The inclusion of burlesque, drag, sword swallowing, magic, fire eating, and acrobatics is guaranteed to get people posting videos of the show and with it, your venue. Variety shows have EXTREMELY high satisfaction rates, as well as highly diverse audiences. There’s simply no better way to set your venue apart from the rest than a variety show. They can also be aggressively marketed toward specific demographics. A variety show should always boast a different line-up both to tempt patrons to return for “debut” acts. Like booked showcases, it’s best to book variety events in advance to secure the best talent. In addition, it’s paramount to hire a high caliber host/emcee, as they must be able to keep up with high energy acts and simultaneously “cut” or “fill” the show’s run time depending on the readiness of upcoming performers. Having successfully run variety shows in New Orleans for years, Comedy Carousel is no stranger to the demands these productions require on and off stage. There are also many legal and ethical considerations to navigate such as; increased security, green room space, standby medical personnel, licencing, and insurance endorsements just to name a few..

Game Show

This format allows for the most interaction with and from the audience. Prizes can range from toys and novelties, to cash and bar tabs. Game shows are especially good for retaining customers that are already attending the venue for other reasons. While happy hour, sports, or local festivals/parades might bring customers in the building, it will likely take some form of interactive entertainment to retain them. While the most common game show format (trivia) can be effective, trivia is ubiquitous and leaves much to be desired in terms of novelty. Adding the talents of a character actor, drag/burlesque performer, or stand-up comedian as your host or emcee will greatly increase the WOW-factor and ensure that everyone is a winner. Comedy Carousel has a repository of digital content including 1000’s of questions, hours of video clips, and interactive multimedia resources like timers, buzzers, podiums, and spinning wheels to keep your customers engaged and playing until the end. If the game itself isn’t enough for some, the prizes will be. We also aggressively secure zero cost prizes from local partners such as zoos, museums, theme parks, theaters, arcades, mini golf and other nearby attractions. Additionally, game show formats are also a GREAT opportunity to give away free tickets to upcoming showcases.

Pro-Tips

Once your venue develops a regular weekly or monthly show, touring performers from out-of-town can be booked far in advance. Booking further out makes marketing and promotion of shows more effective for several reasons.

First, it allows us to launch a “carousel” ad on Facebook. This type of ad lets users swipe through a series of scheduled shows, rather than us paying for them one at a time.  Seeing multiple dates at regular intervals lets consumers know the event was not put on as a lark. This impression of permanence gives people more confidence to buy a ticket weeks or even months in advance.

Secondly, it maximizes the amount of time print ads like 11×17 posters stay up around town.  2-3 weeks is ok, but 2-3 months is better. Much like the billboards, poster rely on the mere exposure effect and thus the more times someone sees the poster, website URL, and logo… the more likely they will click the ad when it rolls across their feed.

Lastly, it gives us more time to improve our ads via A/B split tests that compare the effectiveness of different versions of our promotion videos. Only about .7% of our impressions wind up clicking our FB ads. Compared to the national average click-through-rate (CTR) of .9% across all industries and you’d think we weren’t doing so hot. Until you look at our conversion rate. The national average conversion rate is between 2% and 4%. That means for every 30 people that click an ad, only one buys the product. That’s why its such a big deal that our average conversion rate is 40%… No, that’s not a typo. Nearly half of the people that click our ads buy a ticket.