What Happens Behind the Scenes at a Comedy Show
The volunteer-powered week that turns a back room into a comedy room
I love putting on comedy shows, but people have no idea how much work goes into them. When I first started Comedy on Mackay, we were a small team, and over time we have built a community of volunteers who perform and help with the inner workings of the show. Some of these tasks are the most boring parts of the job, but because we put on great shows, it makes it all worth it. Here’s what a typical week looks like at Comedy on Mackay!
Wednesday
Our communications volunteer creates the group chats on Instagram for comedians to share show information for the show they’re booked for that week. It’s an opportunity for comedians to communicate any difficulties they have or let us know if we need a replacement for them. We also schedule our show posters on our socials to let our audience know about the show that week and share the ticket links in our stories to let our audience know what’s coming up. We also set up our ads on Meta during the week to promote the show.
Thursday
We update the background poster on our socials to let people know about our upcoming show. We also plan ahead, double-check the progress of upcoming show posters, and schedule them on Eventbrite, making sure everything is set up.
Friday
We release our Friday Funny. We want to give our audience and their friends an opportunity to win free tickets to our upcoming shows by featuring art created by Montreal-based comedians. We also do this to promote artistic expression and find ways to engage with larger audiences.
Saturday
We eat snacks.
Sunday
We plan cost-effective ways to share the show with new audiences beyond paid ads, including old-fashioned barking and postering. Alan, our sound technician, also edits the previous week’s videos by synchronizing the audio and video, color grading the footage, and sending the finished files to the comedians who performed.
Monday
We post in various Facebook groups to let audiences know about the show and usually share a promo for people who have never been to a comedy show before. We also share our stories with the ticket link and promo code for that show.
Tuesday
We also share the event day-of in Facebook groups and in our stories, including a link to the show on our website. The volunteers and producers arrive at the show around 5:45pm/6pm for setup, where we turn the back room at N sur Mackay into a small DIY theater. We bungee-cord two benches together, change the curtains to red, hang our sign, and hook up the lights and tech to pull off the comedy show. We have Alan Fregtman on sound and Saba Jakeman on camera, and we go through a rotation of different hosts. After our second show, we tear down. We usually end up leaving at 1am.
Then we do it all over again, week after week. Comedy on Mackay runs because of the people who show up: the comics, volunteers, hosts, producers, audience members, and everyone who helps turn a back room into a comedy room. It takes a village to make a show feel effortless, and we do it because we believe comedy should be a space where people from different backgrounds can come together, try new things, laugh, and build community.