Free Shows Hurt Your Future Shows

When I was starting out in comedy, the general agreement upon getting booked was that I needed to support the show by bringing people. Not every show required it. It was just highly suggested. I stayed away from hard bringers a decade ago, and I still do. Back then, a lot of my shows were "free" with a two item minimum to help the venue recoup costs. I don't have to worry about bringer shows or trying to convince people to come to free shows anymore, as 90% of my gigs are paid now, but starting out I really wanted to show I could help the show beyond my comedy skills. So I would bring friends to showcases, hosting shows, and even bar and restaurant gigs. Some shows were much better than others, but people were generally supportive. After a year of doing shows, I decided to start running my own and get a cut of the action. I figured, I was bringing people but not seeing a dime (outside of a few hosting gigs) and it was time to make the leap into creating my own opportunities.

I Couldn't Sell a Ticket A Year Into Comedy   
When I made the jump into better shows and self-produced shows, I found that because I was doing so many free shows, I ended up hurting my future self because people just assumed my shows would always be free or super cheap. Back in the day Flappers had a 5 For $25 Ticket deal where I would buy the tickets up front and my friends would pay me at the door. It was a pretty predatory practice looking back, as there was no guarantee my guests would show or pay me before leaving the venue. Keep in mind, Venmo wasn't a thing then. Today would have been easier. But I'd buy sometimes up to 50 tickets ($250 worth) and then hope I'd get the money back. What did Flapper's care if they showed? They got their money. Usually 45-50 people came and I would maybe lose $20 at most.  

But I would buy tickets and then sell them to my friends and decided it was time to make some money off my promoting. Back then (2015-16) I would have to charge for student showcases I was in, but the Friday or Saturday YooHoo room shows were usually comp links. This became confusing for my friends as to why some shows cost more than others. I just told them the student showcases were a separate thing. Eventually, they stopped going to student showcases, as my weekend shows were free. By then I had moved into multiple venues. I was regularly playing the Ventura Harbor, Springbok, Comedy Palace, Ice House, and doing road work. People could see me all over the state and south west. But they knew if I did a free show at Flappers on Friday or Saturday, they could just wait. Great for the club. Bad for me trying to expand my fan base geographically.  

The irony of this was that my other shows had better lineups. My YooHoo room shows were mostly "amateur nights" (as a buddy called them) but they were free. Soon, people were tired of only enjoying me and the one or two veteran comics and hating the other less polished acts.

One time I rented the Main Room at Flappers and sold $10 tickets. I got roughly 25 tickets sold and about 100 people in comped. They said they weren't going to pay for a show they saw for free within the last year. Keep in mind, my other booked comics had the same issue. Their friends weren't paying either, even if it was a Sunday night in the main room. The show was a success from an attendance standpoint, and everyone had a good set. I tried again to sell tickets three months later for my show at Flappers; I even didn't perform in comped shows on the weekends to try to create a desire to see me. I got about 75 people out next time, with even less ticket "sales" because the comics I booked still said their friends wouldn't pay but would come if comped. That was my last show there as a producer. It never occurred to me that by getting people to come for free those first 2-3 years would bite me in the butt when I tried to sell my own tickets. 

By 2018 I had ruined all my good will because I was giving away free comedy, and on top of that, giving away comedy that was turning off friends from wanting to see me in better shows down the road. People weren't going to pay for a show, thinking that they'd get the same poor quality show. It was a Catch-22 and one that hurt me for a good year or so in trying to build a career. 

Promote the Shows With Ticket Sales By Encouraging Them to Buy 
This is why it's always the best practice to try to PROMOTE shows with actual ticket sales, even if the venue can't pay you. Not because it helps them, but because it helps you down the road. When you have free bar shows or free restaurant shows out of town, I would encourage you to tell local friends, but don't blast it unless you're getting paid or doing a lot of time. 

Over the years you'll meet strangers and if you're giving them free tickets to see you (or worse, paying for their seats) you are training them to believe you don't have a monetary value. Eventually, you want fans, and if every show you offer is free, they will only see you as an amateur with no professional power. 

Comedy Clubs With Comps Are Using You To Sell Food  
The reason comedy clubs give newbies comp links is because they need butts in seats to sell food. Clubs that comp are just glorified restaurants. They have made it obvious to their audiences they are about the food and not the art. The occasional comped show is fine. 2 for 1 deals are fine. Raffle winning is fine. But when the basic model of a club is to offer "free" entertainment with overpriced food, you are setting up your friends to feel cheated over time. And this logic of comping doesn't apply in other "theater" based modes of commerce.   

Imagine if a few days before a big movie came out the studio just offered free tickets to see it, so the movie theater could sell more concessions? It's the same logic. The movie fails but the popcorn boxes and soda cups are poppin'! At the end of the day, studios put out a product, and if it doesn't sell, they rethink what they're doing.

Even a $5 ticket price guarantees a better audience than people who sacrificed nothing. Prices should be fair to the quality of the show, so obviously a $20-$30 ticket for a bunch of amateurs is not a good investment of your friend's time. But if the tickets are free, they'll now associate you with a show not worth paying for. Even if you are on it and kill it, that's only 5-10 minutes your guests will enjoy.

There are always exceptions. The bar and restaurant shows that are trying to bring in a crowd, with open seating and mixed crowds can be grueling, but play as challenges to win over the crowd in the journey. A show where the food was the admission to begin with is way more ethical than a show pretending they're comping your friends, when they comp people regardless, just to sell food.  
As you progress further in your career, I would advise you only send your friends the ticket link with the lowest price that's not zero. They'll be more committed to come and see you as a valuable comic who demands value. You know, like a professional comic. 

Moving Forward in a Showcase Town 
This of course begs the question, what happens when you do a 5 minute show with a code or link that encourages free tickets. I would discourage you from giving the free link. If that means less people come, then you maintain your value as a ticket seller down the road. But once you give away the cow, the milk goes with it. This might be my hottest take yet, but you aren't going to know your value until you have a ticket price attached to you.  

Free Shows Killed the Movies with Movie Pass
I recently watched the new HBO Max documentary about Movie Pass (my review of Movie Pass, Movie Crash is in the Letterbxd section at the bottom). That app, for $10 a month, let people see as many movies as they wanted a month. Thus, devaluing films and ticket prices. Eventually, they went belly up. But people were so used to seeing "free" movies that when they had to buy tickets again they stopped going. One of the contributing factors to poor box office now is that over 10 million people no longer see the value of movies because they were so used to paying nothing to see them. Sure, Movie Pass gave away a lot of "great deals," but the long game was beyond destructive.

Final Thoughts 
Whether you are producing shows or trying to fill your calendar with gigs, always maintain your value. It's all you have when you take the leap into being a professional comic. I'm reminded of a great gag in the sketch show Kid's in the Hall. One of the characters said "I'm going to make a lot of money. I don't know what 100 times zero is, but I'm sure it's a lot." 

It's clearly a fine line of trying to get stage time and not selling your soul or bankrupting your friends. But I promise you, it would be better to maintain a value as you try to move up the ranks. I've played 200 seat rooms where it was "papered" and 200 seat rooms where everyone spent $10-$25 a seat. Guess which one had a better vibe? Yeah, the people who paid. 

​We all want stage time. But we shouldn't give our show away for free. It's not good for comedy, the show, or the future you wanting to make money off this down the road.