If you are a comedian and you have a smartphone, you have the capability to know just how funny your stand-up comedy routine really is. And better yet…
It doesn’t cost you dime to find out. Here’s the deal…
One of the things that many comedians (especially new comedians) struggle with is knowing how well their stand-up comedy material is working.
Much of that has to do with the lack of any real objective information they get from other comedians (or audience members for that matter).
Most of the feedback a comedian will get about their act from other comedians goes something like this:
“Good set” or “Great set”
“Need some work on (fill in part of act here)
“Might want to try (fill in advice here)
“Better luck next time”,
Besides a lack of specificity, feedback from other comedians can be hugely inaccurate. What do I mean by that? Here’s what I mean..
Other comedians will tell you that you had a “good set” when that wasn’t the case at all. They can also say something like “getting better” when you actually slayed the room.
Keep this in mind — most comedians (particularly new comedian see every other comedian as “the competition” or arch rivals vying for the same limited spots in any stand-up comedy show or line up.
Subsequently, they have no vested interest providing you any real information that will help you to improve or succeed in your comedy efforts.
But if you have a smartphone, you can easily get solid and objective information about your stand-up comedy act such as:
- The number of laughs you generated for each minute of your performance
- The length of each laugh you generated during your performance
- Overall performance score
Here’s how you do it at no cost to you…
The first thing you will need is an audio recording of your act. Every smartphone either has this capability built-in and if not, a free app is available that will allow you to record audio on your phone.
Next, head over to Comedy Evaluator Pro and sign up for a free 3 week trial — no credit card is needed.
Comedy Evaluator Pro is a web page based software application that is mobile device ready. There’s no app to download and install. You just login with your phone to use it.
If you can operate just two buttons while listening to your recorded stand-up act, you can generate a detailed evaluation report that will tell you:
- The number of laughs you generated for each minute of your performance
- The length of each laugh you generated during your performance
- Your overall performance score for the set you evaluated
What I am talking about is “hard” data about what actually happened during your performance — not some subjective feedback that usually has no value at all.
But more importantly, if you know how to use the information produced by Comedy Evaluator Pro, you can pinpoint specific areas in your act for adjustment or improvement like:
- The minutes of your act that have too few punchlines or the set-ups that are too long before the punchlines
- Punchlines that aren’t working well enough and need adjustment
- Punchlines that ARE working well and should NOT be adjusted
- The parts of your act that need attention and improvement first
Armed with this type of information, a comedian could have a significant edge over other comedians who are simply engaging in trial and error and guessing about what’s really happening once they hit the stage.
Now if you feel that having access to this sort of objective information would be of benefit to you, here’s my recommendation:
Don’t sign up for the Comedy Evaluator Pro free trial until you have an audio recording you can evaluate first.
That way you can squeeze out the maximum benefit from the Comedy Evaluator Pro 21 day free trial once you do have the recording of your act on your phone to evaluate.
Not only that, it will only take you 6-10 minutes to find out just what’s really going on with your act (3-5 minutes to get the audio recording, 3-5 minutes to do an evaluation using Comedy Evaluator Pro).
Here’s the bottom line:
Using your smartphone, you can easily find out just how well your stand-up comedy act is working, what parts are working well and to prioritize what parts need adjustment for bigger laughs.
You won’t get that kind of objective and detailed information from other comedians and the best part of all — it won’t cost you one thin dime to find out.
Are there any other ways to measure your performance?
If you find any that are anywhere as valuable or accurate, let me know.
The comedian who is bombing could still be very funny. If we imagine the audiance of the 2 comedians being older teenagers and adults. The first comedian does good because this is his target audience. The second comedian has a target audience of 6-13 year olds. The second comedian would get more laughs if the audience had mostly 6-13 year olds in it. To make sure you have less a chance of bombing, write your target audiende in your adverts. (eg, you could write ”great for 6-13 year olds” or ”unsuatible for anyone under 16”)
This comment does not make sense. Bombing is bombing, end of story.
And the one aspect of a stand-up show that a comedian does not have control over is the audience demographics that will attend a show (provided they are old enough to attend).
I have watched your documentary ‘I AM COMIC’ and saw you use Comedy Evaluator Pro in the documentary. In the beginning can a new comic use a voice recorder to test their results? What is the difference of using a voice recorder and your C.E.P.? Thanks Steve. Follow me @KelliCgreen on twitter.
A comedian can use audio or video with CEP. There is no difference because you listen to the laughter as it occurs and measure the duration of each laugh using the hover button on the CEP control panel or even easier, press and release the space bar on your computer to measure the duration of each laugh during a recorded set (once you start an evaluation).
If you are using a YouTube video, there is an optional interface built into the console so that the YouTube video can be displayed (and played) right next to the CEP control panel. But that is not required to use CEP to evaluate a stand-up comedy set.
In I Am Comic, they had pre-selected video clips of a variety of comedians for me to evaluate that were put on screen in the conference room where I was filmed, but they were not YouTube videos.