Open Mic Log #6 - Kettle River Brewing + Runaways
Today was a big shuffling of variables and I'm still trying to sort through all of them. The biggest was back-to-back open mic's starting at Kettle River Brewery and then scrambling myself over to Runaways to perform a second time there. I've listened to the odd podcast of comics missing pre-COVID days of hitting multiple open mics in one night. With Kelowna that's hard to do, but Wednesday seems to be the perfect day to try it out. It's only two, but it was fun running from one venue to the other. One thing I've also been doing is saving my mid-day dose of medication (medically prescribed CBD oil) until about 10-20 minutes before I'm due to go up.
I thought I was WAY more nervous while I was up there at both venues, but after watching the videos I appear to be way more comfortable than I look, so I haven't figured out if it's because of that or the other factor I've started to observe. That being, I think I've gotten so comfortable that I am now more easily able to observe the audience and their reactions. Ironically, I get less comfortable because I see when they aren't laughing. I want to honor the space they've given me so I don't want to tell a bunch of shitty jokes and make them feel awkward.
But, again, going back to the video. Craig, the host at the Rotary Center was at this open mic as well and was gracious enough to be my cameraman for the video below. Watching the video, I notice that the audience is still laughing, but they're mostly just subdued chuckles. Which is fair, and makes a lot of sense. My jokes aren't really gut wrenching hilarious jokes, they're just chuckle level. Which is good enough for me. After all, I'm new and it's an open mic. All things considered, I'm satisfied with that much!
Another random thing I noticed which I'm not yet sure what to do with is that the dad jokes seemed to do a LOT better at the brewery vs. at the sports pub. Any marketer will tell you to 'know your audience' and sometimes even the most basic lessons I've learned still have to be slapped across my face like that. Tempering that, however, is how many comics (and musicians) will say regardless of being at the same venue or not, some audiences just respond vastly different anyway. So, all you can really do is just have fun, do what you know works, and let faith and/or chaos do the rest for you.
I thought I was WAY more nervous while I was up there at both venues, but after watching the videos I appear to be way more comfortable than I look, so I haven't figured out if it's because of that or the other factor I've started to observe. That being, I think I've gotten so comfortable that I am now more easily able to observe the audience and their reactions. Ironically, I get less comfortable because I see when they aren't laughing. I want to honor the space they've given me so I don't want to tell a bunch of shitty jokes and make them feel awkward.
But, again, going back to the video. Craig, the host at the Rotary Center was at this open mic as well and was gracious enough to be my cameraman for the video below. Watching the video, I notice that the audience is still laughing, but they're mostly just subdued chuckles. Which is fair, and makes a lot of sense. My jokes aren't really gut wrenching hilarious jokes, they're just chuckle level. Which is good enough for me. After all, I'm new and it's an open mic. All things considered, I'm satisfied with that much!
Another random thing I noticed which I'm not yet sure what to do with is that the dad jokes seemed to do a LOT better at the brewery vs. at the sports pub. Any marketer will tell you to 'know your audience' and sometimes even the most basic lessons I've learned still have to be slapped across my face like that. Tempering that, however, is how many comics (and musicians) will say regardless of being at the same venue or not, some audiences just respond vastly different anyway. So, all you can really do is just have fun, do what you know works, and let faith and/or chaos do the rest for you.