Why Seating Is A Critical Factor For Generating Maximum Laughter
For those of you who are looking into running your own comedy room or promoting your own comedy shows…
Audience seating can make the difference between an average show and an OUTSTANDING show, even if you only manage to fill half the room.
Why? Because the closer your audience is seated together, the bigger and more contagious the laughter generated becomes.
The more distance between audience members, the smaller and less contagious laughter becomes.
I should also mention that your ability to sustain a self-promoted comedy show is DIRECTLY related to the quality of the show you produce.
And one of the EASIEST ways to increase the quality of your show (provided you have comedians who are funny to begin with) involves making sure that your audience is seated properly.
One of the absolute BIGGEST MISTAKES I’ve seen show promoters do is allow audience members seat themselves.
When you do that, I will bet money every time that most audience members will sit in the back of the room or seat themselves away from others in a “scattered” fashion. This will KILL your show. You MUST ensure that your audience is seated as close to the stage as possible and that your audience is concentrated near the stage.
If you need an example of this — go to any comedy club and look at the seating set-up.
Now there are 2 ways to get audience members in the proper seating arrangement…
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For many, seating your audience makes them feel “special” and makes your show look professional.
Once you have seated an audience member, you always say “Enjoy the show”.
Even if I knew the show was going to be sold out and the room was packed I would still seat the audience because it says to the audience members that you are putting on a professional show.
But the reality is…
When you first start promoting a comedy room, the room may not be filled to capacity. So seating is critical.
Let me put this another way…
As a former comedian myself and given the choice between 30 people seated close together or 100 people spread out over the room…
My choice would always be to perform for the 30 people. Larger audience numbers hold NO advantage for the comedian if they are spread out all over the room.
But I have seen this one simple, yet critical factor (seating the audience) overlooked time and time again. And almost always…
It results in a lower quality, lower impact show.
Cheers,
Steve Roye
The Professor of Funny For Money
About the Author/Founder of the SCP Blog
Steve Roye is the author of the Killer Stand-up Comedy System and is a globally recognized expert in the field of stand-up comedy material development and presentation strategies -- for entertainers as well as speaking professionals.Please check out the Featured Articles page for direct links to articles on this blog for pro comedians, comedy entertainers, and speaking professionals.
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Tagged with: audience seating • comedy club • comedy room • comedy show • stand up comedy
Filed under: Show Promotion
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This is brilliant advice!
I am involved (mostly performing and discussing “the biz” with the promoter) at a LOT of open-mic and rookie comedy nights all over London, and this is so simple but true! I don’t know how I never thought of it.
Thanks Steve
Seating people is the easy part. Getting them in the door is the rough one (getting them to pay a cover wen ther is no famous person on the bill is even harder). In big cities there are no local cheap advertising venues, only metro wide, cost prohibitive newspapers and radio that reach people too far away to come out to a show. Solve that problem and you’ll be every comics hero.
So, what are you doing to build an online following to promote your shows? Do you have an email list or are ypu doing like most and expecting to get discovered from your MySpace page? Bud, you hit the wrong blog to piss and moan about anything if you are not using the Internet to help build your fan base. You may want to start studying the likes of Dane Cook if you want some answers there.