Running a Comedy Open-Mic – First Month Lessons

It’s been a while since I posted so I should probably give you an update on how it’s been running a comedy open mic. 

When I got the opportunity I was pretty excited because having an open mic on my doorstep is very convenient, especially since I host it myself so I get at least one night a week where I can try out as much material as I like. 

I was genuinely surprised at how many acts were willing to travel from all over London to do an open mic in deepest darkest SW London, and it’s been cool to meet a bunch of new people as well as seeing some familiar faces dropping in. When I started the night I assumed it would only really be interesting for acts who live nearby, since there aren’t a lot of comedy open mics in this part of London. 

The only slight problem I’ve had with the night so far is managing the act’s expectations. 

My goal for it was to be a simple old-school, low-stakes, easy going open mic with minimal admin. Show up, try some material, have a laugh with the other acts, no pressure. It’s a Tuesday night open mic in the corner of a pub in Zone 4 – the audience is whoever is in the bar at the time and doesn’t run away once we turn on the PA system. 

Sometimes there’s a handful of genuine audience members, sometimes it’s just the acts and the bar staff. Either way, there’s usually enough people around to get a genuine reaction from your material, so it’s a low-key place to practise.

The issue is that if you’re used to doing the bigger central-London open mics, which can often feel more like proper comedy shows rather than open mics, my little bar-show can feel a bit disappointing, especially if you’ve travelled a long way to do it. For the first few nights it was all a bit hit and miss, and some of the feedback I got from the acts was that it wasn’t what they were expecting. 

After that I made a point of managing people’s expectations so they knew what they were signing up for, but it’s a tricky balancing act to do that without talking the night down so that nobody wants to do it in the first place. 

But as things progressed through November and early December I got some decent feedback from acts that had a good time there, so that made me feel positive that there was merit in carrying on with the night. 

So far I’ve not done any work to promote the night to an audience, because the venue management said they’d take care of that side of things and I didn’t want to tread on their toes. But some of the acts I’ve spoken to have given me a few ideas for stuff I can do to get some regular bums on seats, so I’ll be trying some of that out over the next few weeks. 

People warned me about the admin involved in running an open mic, but to be honest that’s not really a problem for me. I think if you’ve got any kind of job that involves being a bit organised and basic IT skills, then rounding up a few acts one night a week shouldn’t be beyond your capabilities. 

I took a bit of a break over Christmas, plus train-strikes, covid, and various other difficulties meant that I’ve not run one of the nights since mid-December, but I’ll be starting up again next week. 

Other than that, I’ve not booked in any gigs for January because I’m out of practice, and I think I’ll give it a couple of weeks to get back into shape at open mics before I start trying to book anything new.