How Hard to Promote a Show?

One of the local comedy clubs in my area is trying out doing all ages, family friendly afternoon shows and they had me do their test show! I’ve known the owner for probably a decade, so I wanted this to succeed! If they do it monthly, quarterly or whatever it’s good for local variety performers as it’s more local work!

I do try to promote every show I do, however sometimes it’s just a calendar listing and sometimes it’s more. This one I worked a bit harder to help sell tickets. For this show I worked my email list, and social media a bit harder and much to my surprise I managed to sell out the show!

louie foxx tacoma comedy club

When it comes to promoting a show, there’s a lot that goes into deciding how hard to promote it. Some of the factors are:

-How high profile the show is: A comedy club, theater or TV appearance sounds more prestigious to the general public than a rural library. That doesn’t mean that the rural library is any less important, in fact I’d say that the rural library is a more important show for the community. That may be the only chance that community has to see a live show. However me promoting that rural library really hard, probably won’t change the attendance.

-Do I have a financial stake in the show? If it’s a show where I’m four walling it, or get a percentage of tickets sales instead of a flat fee, then I need to hustle the show a bit more.

-Do I have a personal stake in the show? Some shows you have a personal reason that you want them to succeed. Like it’s a fundraiser for a cause that’s close to your heart, it’s a gig run by a friend, or whatever.

Also anytime you promote a show, you are marketing to a general audience. It’s the old advice that the more people see your name the more likely they’ll book you.

-Louie

Themed Shows…

One thing that Disneyland does better than all of the other attractions in California is sticking to their theme. You don’t see “cast members” dressed for frontier land in fantasy land. The do a great job of bringing you into the world that they want you to be in. In a themed magic show, you … Continue reading “Themed Shows…”

One thing that Disneyland does better than all of the other attractions in California is sticking to their theme. You don’t see “cast members” dressed for frontier land in fantasy land. The do a great job of bringing you into the world that they want you to be in.


In a themed magic show, you need to have more than a couple of props that are themed, you need to really jump in an do the whole thing. This is why when I do themed shows for libraries, my shows are more “academic” than a show that is supposed to take you to another place.


For variety performers this is easier to do now than every before. Custom backdrops are cheap, custom decals are cheap, and custom costumes are cheap. All of these are easy to source with the internet, so bringing an audience into your world only adds a $500 or so more to building your show than using generic props.


If you are going to do a theme, I think you really should immerse your audience into that theme. There’s really no excuse to not do that!