Quote:
Originally Posted by uh-oh
where do you go up, answer?
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When I was doing it consistently it was in the Maryland/DC/Virginia area. At most I'd do like 8 or so open mics or a competition in a month, which isn't that much. Some people go out 4, 5, or more times every week. I never really took it seriously enough to do the grind of constantly going out every night to perform, it's just something I'll do every once in a while if I'm bored.
If someone really wanted to pursue it as a career, you'd most likely have to start out doing about 250+ shows a year, do a lot of networking, try to find a venue that will let you host your own shows, and travel out of state quite a bit for little to no money. When you eventually get to the point of headlining locally (meaning you need at least 30 minutes of REALLY good material, you've most likely been doing it for a year or 2, and all the local comedians should be pretty familiar with who you are) you might make like $100 - $200 per show. It's like any kind of entertainment endeavor, it's really not that much starting out.
The DMV area had a ton of places you could perform on any given night of the week. I moved to Alabama about a year and a half ago and I think I've only done it twice since then. There's only a handful of places that do open mics and half of them are cigar bars which is weird to me. Plus I've been focusing on school so I haven't been writing many new jokes.
and to @
WRATH's comment, you're not gonna do an hour starting out lol. You'll be LUCKY if you can find anyone that will let you go on stage and do 15 minutes within your first year of performing. Most hosts will give you about 5 - 8 minutes tops, and I promise if you write 8 minutes of material and go on stage for the first time, you'll probably rush through it all and be out of stuff to say after 3 minutes.
but overall, I'm not trying to deter anyone from doing it. It's not hard at all, and it's fun to do. Just trying to give you realistic expectations about how it all works. I'm sure almost every comedian with a big Netflix special started out eating shit in front of empty crowds at a local bar