I woke up this morning to the excellent news that a venue I had contacted to host my comedy event had got back to me and told me that I could book their venue for free, this is great news and as soon as they send me the contract to sign then it will be official and there will be no turning back or putting off for me any longer.

They sent me the calendar for September, October and November so I could see what free dates they had and as you would expect from a venue that offers itself for free hire there were very few dates left to pick, but I settled on Wednesday November 13th.

Now that it is almost confirmed it is dawning on me that what I’m about to do is actually real and not just something I have been saying to myself in my head for the past couple of years. At least I hope it is too myself, I’m going to now think “you fuck, you snooping cunt” over and over again just in case someone has invented a device to read people’s minds.

So much is running through my head right now: Is the venue as easy to get to as I originally thought? Is a room with a 50 person capacity enough? Is it in fact too much? Will I be able to attract comedians good enough that people will want to pay to see? Will I be the only person to turn up and have to sit in the audience and heckle and laugh all on my own?

I know the majority of the events that the venue puts on are free entry, but I can’t possibly offer a free event unless I can afford to lose a few hundred quid every time, which sadly I’m not in a position to do.

Good comedians will only do free shows if there are a lot more than 50 people in the audience, and if there is TV on offer. I could get comedians to do it for free, but they would be open mic standard comedians who will attract about five people, if that.

While I am nervous about what is coming up, I am also looking forward to the challenge with just as much gusto. I want to do something different from other comedy shows, one thing I’m looking at is booking four acts and a compare instead of the normal three acts. One of them would be a 10-minute open mic spot.

Exciting (and nervous) times.

Photo by Julie Elliott-Abshire from FreeImages