I’ve only done a few gigs since my last update – all seemed to go pretty well, but nothing to write home about. I’ve been mixing up new and old material, and it’s all progressing nicely.
The big news is that I’m now going to be running an open mic in New Malden on Tuesday nights. A friend of mine has got involved with running a bar, and she asked me if I wanted to put on my own night there, so I jumped at the chance.
We’re starting in November and I’ve already booked acts for each of the shows that month. I’d like to have a few open walk-in spots each night, but I’m not sure how popular that’s going to be for a show that’s not in central London (it’s about 25 minutes from Waterloo, in Zone 4). Either way, the bar is focused on promoting the night and bringing in an audience, while my priority is to make it a good, low-stress experience for acts, so that they want to keep coming back.
I’ve agreed that we’ll see how the first month goes and then decide how/whether to carry on long term – I’ll update here to let you know how it’s going.
The second bit of news this month is that a couple of other acts have asked me if I want to do a split-bill at the Brighton Fringe next May – probably a couple of shows a week for the entire month. I’m up for it, but we need to agree on the logistics and whatnot before we can confirm.
Other than that, I don’t have much booked in for the immediate future other than a couple of spots at We Are Funny in November, so I need to get busy. Obviously the good thing about having my own local night is that I’m guaranteed a decent amount of weekly stage time on one night of the week, and combined with one or two other open mic spots a week that should be enough to really start to polish my act.