Desperation
I work at a comedy club.
Guy calls around noon.
"Hello?"
He tells me he wants to be a comedian. Great. We get calls like this all the time. In a recession, everyone wants to be a comic. They either have an abundance of pent up rage or they think it's an easy path to riches. It's not. This guy fell under the latter category.
He asks if we had "auditions" for comics.
"Well, no but we do have an Open mic program that we can sign you up for. Our next Open Mic is on November 24th..."
He said he needed something sooner. This is how we wants to make money, and if he waits until November he won't have any income.
"You need to understand that it takes years and years for comics to make any money, let alone a living. You have to do Open Mics from club to club, city to city for years and if maybe you're good enough you can work as an emcee from night to night, week to week and maybe if you're good at that you can be a feature act and so forth."
Keep in mind that the above description almost never happens. In the two years I've been working here I've seen maybe two people go from doing Open Mic to feature work--"feature" here refers to an opening act--and even those people are still mostly working locally. You will not make money doing this.
He asked to sign up for the November 24th show.
He said his act was around 12 minutes.
"You'll need to cut that in half."
Guy calls around noon.
"Hello?"
He tells me he wants to be a comedian. Great. We get calls like this all the time. In a recession, everyone wants to be a comic. They either have an abundance of pent up rage or they think it's an easy path to riches. It's not. This guy fell under the latter category.
He asks if we had "auditions" for comics.
"Well, no but we do have an Open mic program that we can sign you up for. Our next Open Mic is on November 24th..."
He said he needed something sooner. This is how we wants to make money, and if he waits until November he won't have any income.
"You need to understand that it takes years and years for comics to make any money, let alone a living. You have to do Open Mics from club to club, city to city for years and if maybe you're good enough you can work as an emcee from night to night, week to week and maybe if you're good at that you can be a feature act and so forth."
Keep in mind that the above description almost never happens. In the two years I've been working here I've seen maybe two people go from doing Open Mic to feature work--"feature" here refers to an opening act--and even those people are still mostly working locally. You will not make money doing this.
He asked to sign up for the November 24th show.
He said his act was around 12 minutes.
"You'll need to cut that in half."