Seeking a crowd

The highs and lows of open mic nights 

It’s eleven thirty on a Tuesday night, and I’m conflicted. On the one hand, my butt is getting sore and I just want to do my set and get the fuck out of here––on the other hand, I need more time to memorize it. Maybe I just sneak off, I think.Is that kosher? Would I get blackballed by the comedy community? I decide not to. 

The host is no longer talking about Triscuits––not that the Triscuit jokes were getting many laughs (I liked them). Now, she’s talking about cocaine. The guy with the goatee in front of me is laughing a little too hysterically, but the rest of us are as silent as we’ve been all night.  

Shit. I have to stop paying attention so I can memorize my set. Now all I can think about are Triscuits and cocaine. At least goatee guy will get a laugh out of it, I think as I go through yet another internal rehearsal. 

“Alright, guys, let’s hear it for your next act––I’ve never seen him before so I’m super excited, give it up for Joseph… Straws!”  

Half-hearted clapping, a whistle, light-headedness, an awkward “good luck” handshake, a yelp from goatee guy for some reason, and I’m on stage.  

I start my material, and even with the blinding lights trained on me, I can see the faces of a dozen jaded comedians, half of them on their phones, the rest probably just trying to memorize their own sets.  

I reach my first punchline. A couple scattered snickers––goatee guy fucking loved it, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing. I deliver the second punchline and get what I detect to be a pity laugh. Third punchline, fourth punchline and so on, and as I look around this empty room, it dawns on me that it is impossible to get a satisfying laugh in here––there just aren’t enough interested people. Or I’m not funny. 

The general rule of stand-up comedy is that before you do anything significant, you have to do the open mic circuit. For years. There’s a long, long ladder to headlining a real comedy club with a real audience, and if you try to skip a rung… well, you fall off the ladder. And people higher up will hate you for it. 

Comedy isn’t like other art forms. Write a story and one or two proofreaders can let you know if it’s good or not. Compose a song and you can run it by your friends before debuting it on stage. Writing a joke isn’t like that. One friend might laugh at something that most people won’t, while practicing a killer condom joke for your stone-faced parents will make you question whether you ever had a sense of humour––the bottom line is that you need to practice with a real audience, and, paradoxically, open mics don’t always provide that.  

Open mics are a mixed bag. Sometimes, the entire audience is a dozen-or-so comics, most of whom are disinterested in everyone else’s jokes. On occasion, there are a handful of other people in the room, but if the crowd is small and the energy just isn’t right, even an established comic will struggle to get the audience on-board (which doesn’t bode well for schmucks like me). Chuckles can feel like major laughs in those settings, but there’s no conversion rate for silence. And the smaller the audience, the fewer the laughs. 

I arrive at the pub fifteen minutes early, introduce myself to the host, order a water, use the bathroom, and, as I’m washing my hands, I hear an unexpected sound––energy. I re-emerge from the restroom and the place is packed (okay, not necessarily packed, but there are way more people than I expected). Did I show up for the wrong night? There must be thirty, thirty-five people, something in that ballpark. 

I think back to Tuesday and relive the gut-punch I felt after that pity laugh. I remember what that room had felt like when I walked in––quiet, stale, dead, with no one but goatee guy sitting in the first six rows. Before the show actually began, the room was dead silent. Tonight is different. 

“Alright, alriiiiiight,” the host says, his amplified voice competing with the excited buzz of the crowd. The noise dies down, he begins his material, and even though I’m just trying to memorize my own set, I can’t help but tune into the joke. I look around and all these people are actually watching him––I’ve never seen an open mic audience with so many non-comedians. The host says something funny about his dad and the crowd erupts––even goatee guy’s voice would’ve been lost in the crowd. 

I realize now that my shirt is drenched with sweat. This is a real crowd. I’ve never performed for a real crowd. What if I fuck up? Is it worse to do badly in front of more people? 

The host calls my name––the crowd cheers, my light-headedness ensues, I give the host an awkward handshake and I’m onstage. As usual, I take the mic to the tune of complete silence. But this silence is different. This silence doesn’t stem from apathy or sheer fewness of people. This is the silence of anticipation.  

I don’t know exactly what malfunctions in my brain, but the words don’t come out properly and I stumble to my first punchline. Only a couple of people laugh at the jumbled words, but I’m used to the unresponsiveness. I set up the next joke, Tuesday’s pity laughs fresh in my memory, and deliver the punchline. They laugh. Thank fucking God. 

There’s something demoralizing about performing in those empty rooms with zero energy, and hearing silence after half your punchlines. I’m a guilty party in this, of course––I’m one of those selfish people half-heartedly listening to whoever’s onstage while going over my own material. No one is at fault here, it’s simply the way open mics work––regular people don’t want to watch hours of amateur comedians doing trial-runs.  

But if there’s something to be learned in the paradox of the open mic, it’s this: bad crowds can make you better. Unless you’re a bona fide pro, it’s impossible to have a great performance in front of a small, low-energy crowd, and bad performances in front of great crowds are inevitable, too. If you want to gauge how funny your new joke is––well, you might need some real audiences to truly test that out. But practicing jokes in a quiet, half-empty room isn’t futile. The silences are discouraging, as are the pity laughs, but when you’re holding a microphone, performing for a room full of engaged people, those forgettable performances will make you better.  

I have a long, long way to go before I’m through with the open mic circuit, but I do feel growth from my poor showings. Those Tuesday nights have thickened my skin and taught me how to fail gracefully in front of bigger crowds. If a joke doesn’t land well, for example, I can just move on rather than panic. And for a guy like me, that is a useful skill indeed.