The Future of Booking Comedy

If you’re a comedian, or if you organise comedy gigs regularly, you will be delighted – nay, over the moon – to discover that there is now a substantially easier system to do it online. And what’s more, not just one but TWO service providers have come along to help.

The Gig Market describes itself as “a booking hub where comedy bookers and promoters can list available gigs and acts can apply for those gigs”. The process, as described on the site itself:

…provides complete management of the entire booking cycle, allowing bookers to view applications and make offers. The system also automates the process of confirmation, and even sends reminder emails.

And there are additional features, like finding drivers for gigs, viewing act profiles, and receiving alerts when there’s something the system thinks you need to know about, like a declined offer.

According to Tony Tinman, comedian and founder of the site, in their first week they registered more than 600 acts and over 50 UK bookers.  He says:

All we’re asking for is that bookers just give it a try. We’re confident most people will see the potential for improving their current booking process. We’re getting some great feedback and we’re adding to the available features all the time.

Cost-wise – it’s free for acts to register and promoters/bookers get a 120 day free trial, after which they pay just 1% of any gig fee that is organised through the site (so unpaid spots are free).

And with a similar system there’s WhatComedy.com, set up by former Jongleurs Head of Marketing; Bob Slayer.  He defines his site thus:

WhatComedy.com
= Online Tools for booking Comedians
With bespoke functionality for managing entries for Comedy Competitions / Gong Shows wtc
> Reduce Admin + Improve Communication = Increase Efficiency

Although officially still in Beta mode, the site has been up and running successfully for a while.  Bob explains how they first developed the system to manage entries for the Laughing Horse New Act Competition:

They previously used to receive hundreds of emails that all needed to be processed – now entries go straight into an online database and all sorts of other tasks managed. This has meant that Alex spends a lot less time on admin and can also more easily delegate and oversee the task. We are developing this functionality further and working with other competitions and gong shows around the country.

We then used that as a base to develop bespoke functionality for Crack Comedy to manage gig bookings – this soft launched a few months ago and we are adding functionality all the time. We are now opening up to select bookers across the spectrum under the same basis.

Like The Gig Market, signup at WhatComedy.com is free for comedians.  For bookers, basic signup is – and will remain – free, and they are hoping to add some premium subscription services along the way.

Is this the future of comedy administration? It certainly makes a lot of sense. So bookers and promoters, take some of the pain out of the booking process and sign yourselves up to these sites. And comedians – it’s a no-brainer – sign up is free and could lead to more work – so what are you waiting for?