#173 - Double Flat Whites & Pinner Spliffs are proud to publish: The Twelve Days of Smokemas Day 3 | Free Facilitation Advice for Comedy Show Hosts

I go to a lot of comedy shows, and this year I went to the single worst one I've ever been to.

I've been to shows where there are literally four of us in the audience (and at that show one of the comics awkwardly picked on me to the point that the room felt weird about it) and they've been better than the random one I went to at Union Hall with a decent lineup and far more people in the audience.

(It's not the size of the crowd, it's what you can do with it! That weirdly does sound like a "quote" from like an AIM profile from 2006! But I'm being sincere!)

The sets were lackluster, the energy was off, and the comics kept saying that the audience was "straight" even though we uh, definitely weren't so that made the whole ~joke not land which meant we weren't breaking the tension via nervous laughter and it just kept spiraling from there.

But the nexus was the host.

The show started over fifteen minutes late (it was a rainy night and it was very clear they were hoping more people would show up) (Pat Reagan once joked that the green room at Union Hall is "famously, a curtain" and that! is! accurate!) and began with the host storming out from backstage and yelling into the microphone, "I had to find a fucking NOTARY PUBLIC today."

It got worse from there!

The thing is, I get that stage lights are annoying. It's also true that because of human nature, when audiences are sparse we tend to sit farther from the stage. So, it's really imperative for the success of the entire rest of the show that the audience is directed to fill the seats up front! That way, the comics can actually see from the stage so that audience feedback actually reaches them.

But because the host started the night by yelling at us, that invitation did not occur right away.

And when it finally did, they had soured the relationship so only like three people moved and then it got so awkward we just abandoned the whole concept.

Anyway, I've thought a lot about what went wrong that night because I'm endlessly fascinated by group dynamics.

It's easy to be a good audience member at a show:

• Laugh out loud when appropriate
• Don't spill your drinks on other people (or put coats on the floor – looking at you, NYU girls who used to be annoying at Club Cumming in 2019)
• Clap and cheer between comics & when instructed to

End of list.

Wait no, I have one more thing to add: laughter is THEE appropriate response to a joke, not what keeps happening near me lately where people insist on repeating the punchline that just occurred and look around as if we're going to be chummy and like give them credit for the joke or something? We...all heard the punchline. From the person holding the microphone. That's why we're laughing!

(An even more bizarre version of this happened the other night during a divisive comic when a girl standing near me kept whipping around in shock anytime anyone found one of the jokes funny. Like I get she wasn't finding that comic funny but–that's not what we're here to do! I'm here to judge the comic via how much I laugh, not judge other audience members for their comedic tastes!)

The audience, the host, and the comics actually all have different jobs. And I get annoyed when I hold up my end of the bargain (showing up on time, ordering drinks so the bar is likely to book the show again, not heckling) I get frustrated when the other roles are unfulfilled.

The comics can be hit or miss because I like when they have a taste or style that they're committing to. I love seeing a comic ride out a bit that's not quite working and nail the landing because they properly read and then made a joke about the rooms energy.

(That is in opposition to what I'll call shock-jock comics who show up to the venues that are notably catering to Alt-Comics and blame the audience for not liking their BigotLite jokes and get defensive saying, "Oh, didn't like that one did ya Brooklyn." like dude, we know what word you wanted to say there. Go back to the Comedy Cellar. Calm down. I actually never need to see any Barstool employee do standup ever again! Haven't been impressed yet!!)

But the host has the job of:

• Welcoming the audience and transitioning us into the Comedy Show portion of the evening /inviting us to be comfortable (they usually do this by making us laugh which isn't like that tall an order!) (you might think it's the bare minimum expectation of a comic at a comedy show, actually!)
• Filling in seats by encouraging everyone to move up (and this is where they need to read the room – some respond to gentle prompting and others are totally down with being kind of dommed immediately into doing something they're a little hesitant to do)
• Making us excited about the next comic they have coming up throughout the lineup without making it drastically obvious whose their friend and who has their last name phonetically spelled out on the back of the program they're holding

It's not that many extra steps! But like, yes, I do think it makes a huge difference to say, "Thank you so much for coming out tonight we have an amazing lineup, please, put your hands together for one of my favorite's [insert comics name here with emphasis going up at the end]!"

My general theory about audiences of any kind – performance, lecture, workshop, whenever you have eyeballs focused forward – they want to know they're doing a good job.

Comics want that feedback via laughter.

Crowds want to be told they're the best crowd ever.

Even if they're not! It really really helps inflate everyone's ego and loosens them up a little bit.

I went to college in Ithaca, which seemed to have some of the worst crowds ever across mediums. Lewis Black got so annoyed at the show I saw him perform that he kind of broke character to tell people to shut the fuck up and stop shouting weird shit about Hilary Clinton (this was in 2013 so it was weird heckler in a conspiracy way but not like The Conspiracy ways) and multiple musicians over-antagonized the Cornell student body to the point of near-mutiny.

(Like, the students can make suicide jokes but it does feel in very poor taste for the bands to!)

Burlington often got very lovely speeches from artists and comics. They love the space, they love that Vermonters are chill, they remark on something about the natural beauty and everyone goes wild because they live in VT babey they're ALL ABOUT that natural beauty thank you so much for noticing!

(While American performers always love Irish crowds, Irish performers tend to be more skeptical. Which, fair enough!)

New York is a mixed bag, and to be fair, the audiences are too.

I just think you're way more likely to flatter someone into submission in this city than poke-the-bear until it cracks.

No one wants to feel like they're in a dud audience. It's lame to feel like you're not a good crowd and it doesn't feel like a personal failure but it does suddenly create an alternate universe where there was a better crowd and therefore a better show.

And the host is in charge of making sure that even if that IS true, we're not thinking about it.

So they should literally just lie and directly compliment people. It! Works! Every! Time!

Also, if anyone EVER says to me that it's "safe to move up" because "no comedians are crowd work comics" and then there is crowd work???? Immediate refund. Give me two drink tickets STAT. Betrayal at the highest level!

I hate crowdwork so much! AAAAHHHHH!

It's cheap! Total hackage! The audience likes seeing people riff so we're more forgiving and malleable with jokes we know are off the dome but it's awful to sit through.

The only people in an audience who are psyched to respond to crowd work, are the exact people you don't want to embolden speaking directly to the comics throughout the show.

I can tell you my favorite jokes from most of the comedians I've seen this year. None of them occurred during crowd work. In fact, the only memories I have of crowd work are the cringey bits where people didn't get the hint and continued to talk to the next comic because they loved the little spark of attention they got/now believe they're Part Of The Show.

So, hosts.

• Start on time (or within five minutes) especially when it's mixed seating/standing and we've all gotten there an hour early for doors. We're already antsy don't let us get resentful (or punish those who showed up!)
• Thank the audience for coming out (bonus points if it's nasty weather and you have the audience give themselves a round of applause)
• Tell them not to speak unless spoken to
• Inform everyone that the best time to order drinks is when you're on stage or between sets so that 5 comedians don't "awkwardly" scold people mid-set for spending money at the bar that's hosting the show
• Do not do a full parody song between comics
• When in doubt, dom it out.

For the last one, I'll even give a recent example.

The other night I went to Sydnee Washington & Greta Titleman's Christmas Show and they came out and did a little dance and the audience response took a second to catch up because people didn't see their entrance and there had been no introduction over the speakers. So they just...redid it.

They handed a mic to an audience member to intro them and as she was leaving the stage Sydnee verbatim said to all of us, "This is going on my instagram and my Ex is going to watch this so I need y'all to be LOUD."

The room shook with the volume of screams for the second time around.

(Also the person who got handed the mic randomly did a great job and had the perfect announcer inflection.)

A few jokes later and the energy had totally shifted. Because they made it FUNNY and that IS the skill I expect from comics! No panic, just a direct ask and a re-do.

Tell people what you're expecting from them and they'll probably come through! Most people do respond well to clear directions! Resistance is natural you just have to sit in the discomfort for like three seconds before most people will just follow suit!

When I go out to a show, I'm hoping to have a good time. I've gone to comedy shows on some weird nights and laughter can cut straight through a good mood.

Most of it just comes down to confidence, but also purpose. Trust that everyone is there because they want to be! I get that the "haha I'm sure half of you were DRAGGED here" jokes come from a self-soothing place, but it just makes everyone flatface in the audience. The draggers and the dragged are going to give an awkward chuck (that's half a chuckle) at best. The rest of us will just feel a little sad for the comic because like, no we really did drag our asses to Gowanus just for you! There is literally no other reason I would ever be in Gowanus! I took the G TRAIN to get here show some appreciation!!!

To facilitate means to make easy. The task of a comedy show host is to make it easy for us to laugh.

And crowd work is the worst way to do that I don't care that this started about hosting it's ending with a plea to keep the medium of stand-up seperate from improv and also there's no joke about someones career that is going to compell me more than the written material that is being actively honed during the 5/10/15 minute sets I'm witnessing.

Also everyone stop using phones on stage to read off of it's sooooo tacky and everyone looks dumb when they're scroll scroll scrolling through their notes app while their phone lights their face from below!

Okay that's it day 3 over happy smokemas! I literally ordered a flat white today at Variety because I really enjoyed them while I was in Ireland and I realized they had them on the board and they're quite good even though I feel a little silly ordering one but it IS different than a latte and I do always want more espresso than milk – anyway.

The best show I saw this year was Nish Kumar at Union Hall, it was two hours and he didn't stop the entire time and I've never seen that place MORE crammed and we were sat on the wall facing two comics we really enjoy (Mohanad Elshieky and Josh Gondelman) and then I realized that the woman sitting next to Josh was obviously/definitely his wife, Maris Kreizman, who runs a fabulous Substack chock full of book recs and I have a running list of ones I want to get to (and reading books is soooo on my list for what's "in" for 2025!) and THAT was who I had to be chill/normal about because our knees were touching due to the odd angle. I would have been normal and complimented her if it weren't for the abrupt proximity we would then be forced to share for the rest of the night.

Maggie Winters was also a highlight, as was Drulia a show comprised of Julia Shiplett (who we loved and got the tickets for) and Drew Anderson who's made a recent return to stand-up and I can't get enough of his cadence and observations. Oh and I finally got to see Demi Adejuyigbe do one (1) backflip. Okay that's really it now byyeeeee more tomorrow isn't this fun are we all having fun?!

Hope so! Love you!