Background
I didn’t get a suitable venue / timeslot for Edinburgh 2016 so I booked myself into a bunch of other comedy festivals and essentially a tour [full details here]. I only did one show at this festival.
Aims
- To try a new “smaller” comedy festival.
- To gain a bit of an audience in a new city
- To break even.
- To meet some of the local comedians and learn more about the scene in Bath.
- To maybe get a podcast with the organisers.
- To (try) and do some spots on other shows.
Prep
- Much like with Leicester the biggest cost was going to be a place to stay so I called in a favour from Geoff Whitting who let me crash on his sofa which saved me some money.
- I booked into a “best of the Fringe” show the night before my show as a promotional spot to get people to come down and watch my show. I made sure I did material from my new show and not the current one on this slot so if people came to see the show from this spot they wouldn’t feel shortchanged.
Marketing
- With my show registration I got a listing in the Fringe programme which is where 40% of my audience discovered the show. The rest came because I told them about it in the hour before the show.
- I also Tweeted about the show and shared posts in relevant Facebook groups etc.
Costs
| Thing | Cost |
| Show registration | £50 |
| Food | £21 |
| Travel (petrol) | £25 |
| Total | £96 |
Bucket
£59.10. 20 people in the audience (the room could hold a max of 45)
Profit / Loss
-£36.90
Things I’ve learned
- The local paper is a weekly publication so I need to contact them ahead of time next year.
- Bath is small but the festival venues seem quite spread out.
- Not everyone knows a festival is happening so you sometimes have to explain to people that there’s a Fringe happening when “flyering”.
- People don’t really flyer. By “flyering” I mean going around the venue the hour before the show and telling people what the show is about.
- People don’t really do posters. There was almost none in my venue.
The results
- 7 new email addresses on my newsletter.
- Had a really lovely open spot the night before which got me seen by a big promoter.
- Met some awesome local comedians and a potential spot sorted for the future.
- Nick Steele (the festival organiser) is up for a podcast, but I didn’t get it done during the weekend I was there.
