Zoom Comedy Show Bookers Need to Look Outside Their Own Neighborhoods

The one silver lining of a purely digital comedy world is the breakdown of the geographical limitations between comedians and fans. It’s not easy for an aspiring comedian to jet off to New York or Los Angeles in hopes of getting stage time at Whiplash or the Store, let alone permanently relocate, but it’s almost necessary to push your career forward.

To put it into terms most comedians don’t understand (i.e., sports), NYC and L.A. are comedy’s version of a Division 1 NCAA football team, and the surrounding cities are D2 (Denver), D3 (Orlando), or JUCO (anything with “-ville” in its name). In order to make it as a pro, many eventually transfer to these bigger schools in order to catch the eyes of scouts and the media. It’s currently a bad time to relocate, but nobody needs to leave their homes to do a Zoom or Twitch show… so why are we seeing the same line-ups as the before times? When you are not limited to your city limits to book a show, it’s time to branch out and make your line-ups less routine.

If you’re going to do comedy during a lockdown, you have to get creative, and creativity means more than downloading software. Zoom and Twitch streams can never hold a candle to live, in-person comedy, but they can provide a worthwhile purpose beyond fighting boredom. Like the “#WGAStaffingBoost” movement on Twitter that set out to help unrepped writers get jobs, independent digital shows can help push often overlooked comics into the spotlight.

No matter your profession, getting hired (or booked) is much more about who you know than how talented you are. It is a garbage reality, but reality still. Comedians travel way more than industry. They meet more comedians in more cities and towns than anyone booking a major festival or TV show. If you ever lived and performed in one of the D2 or D3 scenes, you know just how exclusive and small the talent pool that gets shown off to these infrequent industry visits are. It’s often the same three comedians paraded out once a year, and that trio usually consists of 1) their contact’s favorite drinking buddy, 2) a guy who actually moved away four years ago, and 3) a guy who hasn’t been on stage in a year but will come out of hibernation for a Bud Light and a vaunted handshake. We can do better than that.