Keeping the open mic alive

This post was inspired by this Reddit thread on running an open mic and keeping an audience.

Starting An Open Mic

An open mic is a room for everyone to come and practice their material, and a place for the audience to get in a laugh.

Open Mics Change With Time

You'll probably start your open mic in an empty venue on a dull night for the bar.
It's a way for them to get some patrons in, comedians included, and fill some seats. At this stage, you're mostly focused on getting a large number of comics in to sign up and do their material. More the merrier.

Once a gig becomes more established, it gets into the local comedy zeitgeist and real audience members start turning up.

That's when you hit a good problem: the gig has become popular enough that every comic in town wants a spot.

The catch is, if you just let everyone on, you make the gig worse.

Keeping It An Open Mic

Once real punters start coming, it's time to tighten up and keep improving the show.

We wanted to keep our show as an open mic rather than turn it into a booked show. Everyone needs a room to work material and get a start in comedy, and that only works if it stays open sign-up.

Here's the basic housekeeping we've put in place to keep the on-the-night sign-up running, and keep the show inviting for beginners:

A limit on the number of sign-up spots
A frequency limit on signing up, something like "every second week" or "every third week." We run a physical sign-up on the night, but keep a record of who was on the previous week so we can enforce it.
Always let first timers on, even if it means a reduced time. They're here to support the show, so make the effort to give them a good first experience.
If it's an in-person sign-up gig, keep it in-person only.
A small number of curated spots for working comics who elevate the gig.
Explain the rules and tips somewhere visible, like a pinned post on your socials. A lot of first timers don't know how a gig works, so spell out what to do when they arrive and how to get on.
Keep a regular set of hosts, these people want to make the night great, they're the backbone and will be the reason the gig thrives
Once you bend these rules for 1 person, you'll gave 20 people doing it, so stick to your rules that's the only way to make it fair for everyone

Why We Added These: Bar Humbug Comedy

This is where our Wednesday night at Bar Humbug actually landed.
https://www.instagram.com/barhumbugcomedy/
We capped the sign-up sheet at nine spots. Made sense, it fixed the "show runs too long" problem straight away.
But it created a new issue. Word got out that the list fills up, so the same group of comics started turning up an hour early just to lock in their name. By the time anyone else arrived, the sheet was already full.

It's great that they're that enthusiastic, but it started to kill the gig. Other comics found out they could never get on, so stopped turning up at all. The audience started seeing the same acts every single week.
Working comics who couldn't get there that early missed out entirely.

So we added the "sign up once every two weeks" rule on top of the cap. Performed last week? You sit this one out. It's a small rule, but it forces turnover, protects the regulars we love, and still leaves room for new faces to get a shot.

Here's an example of the rules and tips we posted

This post was inspired by this Reddit thread on running an open mic and keeping an audience.

Starting An Open Mic

An open mic is a room for everyone to come and practice their material, and a place for the audience to get in a laugh.

Open Mics Change With Time

Once a gig becomes more established, it gets into the local comedy zeitgeist and real audience members start turning up.

That's when you hit a good problem: the gig has become popular enough that every comic in town wants a spot.

The catch is, if you just let everyone on, you make the gig worse.

Keeping It An Open Mic

Once real punters start coming, it's time to tighten up and keep improving the show.

We wanted to keep our show as an open mic rather than turn it into a booked show. Everyone needs a room to work material and get a start in comedy, and that only works if it stays open sign-up.

Here's the basic housekeeping we've put in place to keep the on-the-night sign-up running, and keep the show inviting for beginners:

A limit on the number of sign-up spots
A frequency limit on signing up, something like "every second week" or "every third week." We run a physical sign-up on the night, but keep a record of who was on the previous week so we can enforce it.
Always let first timers on, even if it means a reduced time. They're here to support the show, so make the effort to give them a good first experience.
If it's an in-person sign-up gig, keep it in-person only.
A small number of curated spots for working comics who elevate the gig.
Explain the rules and tips somewhere visible, like a pinned post on your socials. A lot of first timers don't know how a gig works, so spell out what to do when they arrive and how to get on.
Keep a regular set of hosts, these people want to make the night great, they're the backbone and will be the reason the gig thrives
Once you bend these rules for 1 person, you'll gave 20 people doing it, so stick to your rules that's the only way to make it fair for everyone