I thought it might be helpful to approach the delivery of high level stand-up comedy material from a different perspective.
What I will do in this article is reverse engineer the dynamics of a tight and effective pro level stand-up comedy routine that generates an average of 4-6+ laughs for each performing minute.
This should provide you with some fairly concrete answers to questions like these:
- How many jokes per minute does a pro comedian deliver on stage?
- How many words are in a killer stand-up comedy bit?
- How long is a set-up for a stand-up comedy joke?
First let me cover some important facts:
Just The Facts
- Every comedian is afforded the exact same 60 seconds every performing minute that they are on stage to generate laughs whether they perform for 6 minutes or 60 minutes.
- Stand-up comedy is an audience reactive performing art. A stand-up comedy routine that slays an audience causes the audience to react (laugh or applaud) multiple times in any given performing minute.
- Audience laughter generated from delivering a killer stand-up comedy act consumes time in varying increments multiple times in any given performing minute.
- Audiences cannot laugh out loud and listen at the same time. Subsequently comedians must afford the appropriate amount of time for an audience to laugh (and/or applaud).
So, to quickly summarize the facts I have just presented:
When a comedian is talking the audience is listening. When the audience is laughing (and/or applauding), the comedian is not talking. Both of these activities consume time each performing minute.
Now for the next part of the information you need to know before I reverse engineer a killer stand-up comedy routine.
Pro Comedian Performance Levels
Professional headline level comedians are consistently able to generate an average of 4-6+ laughs per performing minute.
To be more accurate, those laughs equate to being able to generate an average of 18+ seconds of laughter each performing minute.
Note: You can easily verify this by reviewing any pro stand-up comedian performance on YouTube and simply count the number of laughs the generated each performing minute.
Now The Reverse Engineering Aspect
Armed the information provided so far, it is pretty darn easy to reverse engineer a tight and funny stand-up comedy set.
If a comedian is generating an average of 18+ seconds of laughter each minute, that means they are spending an average of 42 seconds each minute delivering their stand-up comedy routine.
In other words, they have an average of 42 seconds to set up and deliver 4-6+ punchlines and taglines each performing minute.
Now let’s tackle the questions I started this article with:
How many jokes per minute does a pro comedian deliver on stage?
If you are counting jokes individually, then it would be an average of 4-6+ per minute. For those who deliver topic based stand-up comedy material, it would be more accurate to say they deliver an average of 4-6+ punchlines or taglines per performing minute.
Note: Again, a more accurate and objective gauge of laughter levels generated by headline level stand-up comedy material is an average of 18+ seconds of laughter each performing minute, regardless of the number of laughs generated.
Related Report:
How many words are in a killer stand-up comedy bit?
At a speech rate of 120 spoken words per minute (2 words per second), a comedian has roughly 84 words (more or less — usually less) to deliver their stand-up comedy material along with 4-6+ punchlines in order to generate a minimum of 18 seconds of laughter per minute.
In reality, the actual number of words used in any particular minute of stand-up comedy material can vary quite a bit, meaning that some minutes a comedian may only use 40 words to generate laughs for a minute of material and use 100 words in another minute.
Note: This actually not difficult to do if a comedian knows how to develop and structure their stand-up comedy material to get 4-6+ laughs per minute on stage right from the beginning.
How long is a set-up for a stand-up comedy joke?
There are simply too many variables to provide a direct answer to this question. Suffice it to say that it should be obvious that if a comedian is delivering 4-6+ punchlines and tag lines per minute, there is precious little time for set ups.
It’s A Wrap
The reason that I reversed engineered pro headliner stand-up comedy material the way I did was to illustrate these critical aspects of generating headliner level laughs on stage as a comedian:
- You have a limited number words to set-up any particular punchline in any stand-up comedy joke or bit you want to deliver.
- You only have an average of 42 seconds (or less) to generate a minimum average of 18 seconds of laughter per minute with 4-6+ punchlines.
- You must be acutely aware of the punchline frequency in any given minute of your stand-up comedy material.
While the information I have just provided may seem a bit academic, make no mistake:
Developing tightly structured, headliner stand-up comedy material for the stage that works for you and your sense of humor is NOT difficult if you truly have comedy talent and you are using the methods in the Killer Stand-up Online Course.
And the best part of all is that you do not have to hold the “title” of comedian headliner in order to generate headliner laughter levels with your stand-up comedy material if you know how to skillfully craft a stand-up comedy act that incorporates ALL of your comedy talent right from the start.
Like I said before, every comedian is afforded the same 60 seconds each minute to deliver their stand-up comedy act and generate the laughs they need during a stand-up comedy performance.
And it will always be the comedians who can generate the most laughs every minute they are on stage that enjoy the most opportunities stand-up comedy has to offer.