Lately I’ve been booking fellow St. Louis comic, Nathan Ortan, to open for me at various one-nighters.  Opening for me is no great honor, but what I look for when I ask someone to work with me translates to others as well.  One-nighter gigs are often good money, especially when they’re local and don’t drain your gas tank, plus they make you a better comic which is explained in my book, Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage.  They can be quite different than working in a comedy club.  So here are the reasons I can count on Nathan to be a solid opener for me.

1.  He can get there on his own.  I text him the address, he uses technology we’ve had for over a half-decade, and confirms the location with me the day of the gig along with the time.  Most importantly, he has a vehicle that will get him there and back.  He shows up on time every time.

2.  He can clean it up and limit crowd work.  This isn’t always a must, but recently Nathan did 10-15 minutes without disgusting or offending the crowd.  Nathan usually works with very little crowd interaction which is appropriate for short sets up front.

3.  He realizes the crowd is going to suck but still works through it.  There is no tougher spot than opening a show in a room that isn’t expecting comedy.  Usually they’re not seated, listening, or even facing the stage.  The introduction you get is awful and the sound system is even worse.  This happened and Nathan didn’t complain once.  Afterwards he was positive and thanked me for the experience and compared it to comedy weight-lifting.  Each one of these hell gigs gets a little better as you get used to them.

4.  As mentioned in #3, he’s thankful.

5.  He wears appropriate attire.  At a recent gig we did, I texted him that jeans weren’t allowed because it was at a country club.  No problem.  (No, he didn’t wear shorts either.)  Be sure you can clean yourself up and wear bigboy outfits when the time comes.

Note:  I’ve had a lot of other great openers as well who also were good examples of the above (this post wasn’t to suggest that any of them weren’t).

For more tips on how to make money in comedy, check out Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage on Amazon, iTunes, Kindle, Nook, etc.