MICF losing money and having scheduling woes.

[sharleen]

Originally Posted by Alisso

I would assume that much of the stuff they classify as "media coverage" would be reviews and articles that they didn't actually have to pay for.

you'd be surprised. I know that to be considered for reviews in the street press, they expect you to take out advertising first. The advertised shows get priority. So that 'free' advertising is still pretty much paid for.

Ummm... all the people I spoke to that did shows did better than usual last year. *shrugs* The extra advertising and prolonged media campaign helped I think.

The comfest website goes online with shows on 16th Feb.

Watch out for UK act - 'We are Klang'. My big tip for the festival.

[sharleen]

For all those questioning the advertising campaigns for comfest this year, there's been a few ads in the street press this week for shows and posters for big acts like Ardal o'Hanlon have started appearing around town.

[unfrufru]

new article with susan provan talking shit per usual

http://www.theage.com.au/news/comedy...e#contentSwap1

Did you hear the one about the comedian who broke even?

IT'S no joking matter: the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, running now for 21 years, is a huge money-spinner, last year pulling in $7.6 million in ticket sales.
But despite the festival's success, adoring audiences and the big names it attracts, it can be a tough financial road for newcomers.
Since it started in 1987, the festival — which is not curated and is open to anyone — has grown enormously, from 46 acts to this year's 288. Of those, the big acts such as Ross Noble, Danny Bhoy or Daniel Kitson naturally make the biggest profits, as they command huge audiences, though festival management will not disclose monetary figures.
On the other hand, performers with smaller followings sometimes have to fork out thousands of dollars to get a venue, and pay for production and publicity, rarely making up for their hard-earned outlays.
Business reality means that while an audience might be paying an average $23 to see a comedy festival show, only some (if any) of that will trickle into the hands of the person on stage if they are new to the game.
The festival's director, Susan Provan, has been in the job for 12 years, juggling the allure of big acts "who'll do a lot at the box office" with those "who aren't going to make us any money but who are artistically important".
Nurturing newcomers and making them aware of pitfalls is strongly in the festival's interests, and it's something she finds rewarding.
Provan says she is very direct with up-and-coming comedians about the financial risks of their precarious calling.
"We basically aim to make sure that people understand that they are probably going to lose money for their first few festival shows," says Provan, whose staff help new entrants make sure they've done a sensible budget and have thought about whether they have the money to lose.
"It can take at least five years to develop an audience and reach a position where you can break even on a festival show," she says of newcomers. "But they do it for all kinds of other reasons: it's really good for your profile; it's good for your career; it's a way of showcasing your work to the industry and to people who actually can make a difference to your career."
The festival management takes seriously its role of making sure acts go in with their eyes open, running marketing and production workshops that deal with money matters. It also offers budget meetings to performers, where advice is given if requested. "Not everybody wants it, unfortunately," says Provan.

While it would be easy to assume that the $7.6 million comedy festival ticket sales last year meant huge profits for the festival itself, that's not the case. The Commonwealth Games interfered with festival fever last year and there was a $100,000 loss. The year before, with $5.8 million made at the box office, profits are believed to have approached a modest $1 million.
While Provan says there have been small profits for most of the past 10 years, this money is ploughed back into the festival to act as a buffer for "a rainy day". Most of the money or "in-kind" assistance from the festival's armada of sponsors goes into the superstructure that is the comedy festival management organisation.
Provan has no interest in limiting the festival's yearly growth in the number of acts. "It's not something you can put a lid on," she says. "If you try to — where would you draw the line? Then a fringe would spring up and all that does is create a whole other organisation that would be competing for sponsorship and government funding.
"We have been a remarkably successful festival in allowing it to grow … you never know from year to year what unknown group might present something fabulous."
One such newcomer is Brisbane comic Josh Thomas, 19, for whom success and the financial realities of the comedy festival have been an education.
Two years ago, aged 17, he triumphed at the 2005 festival's Raw Comedy competition and has returned this year with his show, Please Like Me.
Thomas was fortunate enough to be picked up a few weeks ago by personal management firm the Token group, headed by Kevin Whyte, who makes contracts with his top-notch stable of Australian comedians.
"It's a trust-based business," says Whyte, whose company risks its money to produce its comedians' shows, but also invests in nurturing them.
"The fact that we do have bigger shows gives us the capacity to help out, to work on developing smaller shows. We take the approach that you work with people when they're young … (and) when they're more successful, you reap the rewards."
Token is a major player in the Melbourne comedy festival, managing and producing such big names as Adam Hills, Corinne Grant, Rove McManus, Charlie Pickering, Dave Hughes, Judith Lucy and Denise Scott, most of whom are festival regulars. Arrangements are confidential but management commissions (believed to be 15 per cent) are consistent for all Token Artists' represented clients.

Whyte says the best thing about the comedy festival is its democracy. "If you want to do a show, you can do a show," he says. "It means the personal taste of a curator doesn't drive the agendas. The down side of that is that people try their luck and lose money — and we lose money on things as well.
"Having said that, it does give people the opportunity to — without having to apply to someone, without having to beg for assistance, without having to conform to a particular style guide — do a show and find an audience."
So even though his career is in its infancy, young Josh Thomas will get to perform at the Melbourne Town Hall this season. Because his deal with Token is new, he has already forked out $10,000 of his own money for the show; it was earned through working for a computer games company. He's expecting to lose about 40 per cent of that.
"My justification to my parents is that it's kind of like a university degree: you have to pay to learn how to do it," he says.
Even so, he has been fortunate to live in Brisbane, where he performs four or five times a week and can make a living from comedy. The computer job, he says, was an extra task to earn the money to finance his Melbourne show, where full tickets will cost $17.70.
He accepts that he'll lose money but doesn't seem too bothered by this. "I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me laughter," he says.
For well-known comedian Damian Callinan, who has worked on The Skithouse, The Wedge and AFL show Before the Game, the lean years have largely passed. He started to break even after three or four years in the festival business and says it has been "kicking in" with "handy gains" for the past few years.
"I am currently organising (my show for) Edinburgh and it's like starting all over again," Callinan says.
"You go over with a minimal profile among 10 times as many acts and fork out twice as much money (as in Melbourne). But here I always say to younger comedians that it's kind of like a trade fair, really. You've got to put your product out on the trestle table or no one knows you're doing it.
"In the early days, you even come down to measuring the worth of a prop. Is this Viking helmet worth one joke divided over 22 nights for 22 laughs at $85? No."
Also doing well is Christina Adams, whose comedy festival show this year is at the Victoria Hotel, another of the premium venues. Adams used to feel like "you have to flog your parents and so on to bring their local Rotary group just so that you can cut even".

"It's interesting as you go on and you get the support of a manager, for example; the financial side becomes much less of a concern," she says.
Adams did well at last year's festival, performing at the Melbourne Town Hall, but has this year given up her teaching job to focus on comedy.
"It is a real concern and obviously in the lead-up to the festival, people are doing less of their regular day jobs in order to prepare, which usually means that once the festival hits they're running on a zero bank balance, which is scary and doesn't add to your enjoyment of the festival."
One of the comedy festival's newest innovations has been set up to give greater support to comedians new to the scene or doing alternative flavours in comedy.
Comedy@Trades, established by its executive producer Catherine Woodfield and her Bella Union Enterprises company, hosts a number of shows at Trades Hall, helping acts with production and other support to ease their financial burdens.
Woodfield, who has a business background, produced the successful show Keating at the 2005 festival — she realised there was an opportunity to use Trades Hall as a venue for alternative acts with the benefit of "economies of scale".
Woodfield says her experience revealed the many traps for young players.
"We did well because we had a fantastic show that was beautifully written and performed, but we were also allowed to do a lot of things that saved us a lot of money from a ticketing and publicity perspective, so that the artists all got paid," she says.
With support from sponsors and the comedy festival management, plus in-house infrastructure at Trades Hall, acts at Comedy@Trades get the benefit of an appropriate venue, equipment, an independent and less expensive box office and ticketing system, plus broad publicity and marketing support for a fixed fee. The rest is self-produced by the comedians.
For Woodfield, who's passionate about the venue and the acts she has found for this year's festival, it also allows creativity to flourish without draining artists of their funds.
"The festival does a fantastic job pulling everything together. We do something different, more alternative, but we benefit from being under the umbrella of the event."
Fest facts

■415,000 people attended Melbourne International Comedy Festival events last year, outstripping the Melbourne Cup Carnival and the Australian Grand Prix. ■It is the second-biggest comedy festival in the world.
■Melbourne received about $52 million worth of "economic benefits" from visitors spending during the festival.
■The best-selling acts in 2006 were (in no particular order): Dylan Moran, Lano and Woodley, Ross Noble, Dave Hughes, Wil Anderson, Judith Lucy, Danny Bhoy (left), Jason Byrne, Adam Hills, Demetri Martin and Daniel Kitson.

[Mythor]

Originally Posted by Provan

We basically aim to make sure that people understand that they are probably going to lose money for their first few festival shows

What a great aim for the director of the entire festival! "Hi, please come to our festival and lose all your money!"

Obviously people need to go in with their eyes open, but surely when even relatively successful newcomers (RAW Comedy Winner?) are going in expecting to lose a bunch of money then that should be a sign that there is something seriously wrong? The festival can only take place if comics attend, yet they're expecting many of the lower-rung comics to be essentially funding the festival?
Seems out of kilter to me. I'm sure someone will be along soon to point out it's because I'm a clueless idiot though so it's all good.

I seem to remember Kevin Whyte saying the standard Token commission is 20% because I seem to remember being surprised it was so high. Can't find the thread anymore though.

[Gutter Monkey]

Originally Posted by Mythor

Seems out of kilter to me.

It is out of kilter, and it's 100% fucked, but there's not a lot that anyone can really do about it. There's 288 shows and advertising and promoting all of them equally would be pretty much impossible and not really all that intelligent any way. The festival has to run itself like a business otherwise it would quickly run itself wayyyyy into the red and die, and then no one gets to play. Because it has to run itself like a business it has to make cold hard decisions about where the advertising budget goes and if the big name overseas comedians are going to rake in the majority of the cash for the festival (apart from grants) then they're going to get the majority of the support. The little guy gets left out in the cold but that's the way it is - they have to become business savvy very quickly or go broke.

The fact that many comedians are forced to stand outside the town hall for 4 or 5 hours a day handing out flyers in the hope that they'll get maybe a dozen paying customers that night is a symptom of the problem. Flyering is a fucked up way of getting bums on seats but for many shows it's really all they've got. For many performers in the festival flyering is perhaps the only guaranteed way to make sure that the punters stop and consider your show, and at least 80% of the flyers handed out won't result in a ticket sale. There's just a massive glut of shows during the festival. Combined with the fact that we've just had a bunch of other big events (the swimming, the Arts festival, Moomba, the Grand Prix, etc etc) and the fact that Comedy Festival Inc has to put most of their advertising behind the bigger shows in order to stay afloat, the little shows are pretty much guaranteed to get lost amongst the crowd.

The great majority of the shows listed in the guide are probably being produced by the performers themselves and this is a terrible way to run a business. I know from experience - if you're putting together a show you really don't have enough time to properly budget, advertise and promote it as well. I tried to do all that for my last festival show and fucked up big time. What do I know about media relations and advertising? I make silly costumes and tell funny stories. I gave it all I could and I got some excellent media exposure (I was on GMA with Bert for fuck's sake), I targetted all the scifi fan communities and I dragged that damn Optimus Prime costume down to the Town Hall and flyered every damn night but I still couldn't draw much of a crowd. The show was as big and as spectacular and as funny as I could make it and it won the goddamned Best Comedy award in the Fringe festival a few months previously. I honestly don't know what else I could have done with the budget I had.

There's not nearly enough producers or media relations people in this business and this is holding the whole industry back. We need more people who know how to run the shows as a business with an aim towards making a profit. Many shows are just hoping to somehow break even with no real plan of how to do that so they're doomed from the get go. If many of the comedy festival shows are losing money its because they're being produced by people who don't know how to avoid losing money. Creative people are often the worst people in the world to be running a business, especially in a horrifically competitive market like the comedy festival. You can't really blame them for this - there's not enough people around with the financial/organisational skills to properly run a show so they do the best they can. The workshops that the festival runs will teach people the basics but that isn't enough to make a show financially viable, especially when you're competing against 287 other shows in trying to attract an audience.

[sharleen]

Originally Posted by Gutter Monkey

The great majority of the shows listed in the guide are probably being produced by the performers themselves and this is a terrible way to run a business. I know from experience - if you're putting together a show you really don't have enough time to properly budget, advertise and promote it as well.
*snip*
There's not nearly enough producers or media relations people in this business and this is holding the whole industry back. We need more people who know how to run the shows as a business with an aim towards making a profit.

Agreed, agreed, agreed.
And as someone who has dipped their toes in the production pool for comedy festival a couple of times, I can also say that its important that the festival doesnt just bow to the whims of big producers and maybe help out the little guys a little more. Starting with perhaps listing all acts on the board rather than just their own hub? Thats been one common complaint over the years.

I would happily get back in the industry and utilise my knowledge of marketing and pr and budgeting, etc to the festival. I love comedy. We need more people who do it with love for the art and good business building sense than just immediate $$$ in their eyes and a sense of skepticism in regards to talent and disdain for their own acts on a personal level. But then, some might call that good business. I just don't work like that. Anyone who needs a bit of help, I'll happily share my experience with.

Now GM, can you go over to the Age website and comment on the editorial piece that seems to insinuate locals and their 'lack of preparation' is to blame for shows not breaking even? http://blogs.theage.com.au/lastlaugh...ur_act_to.html

[Gutter Monkey]

Originally Posted by sharleen

Now GM, can you go over to the Age website and comment on the editorial piece that seems to insinuate locals and their 'lack of preparation' is to blame for shows not breaking even? http://blogs.theage.com.au/lastlaugh...ur_act_to.html

Done.

I did put actual paragraphs breaks into my reply but it looks like they get automoticall dropped, so they're going to get a great thick wad of text. Dammit, I made it look pretty and they uglied it up!

[unfrufru]

a day in the lift of susan provan, oh dear fuckling god

http://www.theage.com.au/news/comedy...697097059.html
Daniel Ziffer spent a night on the town following Susan Provan, the woman in charge.


A NIGHT on the town with Melbourne International Comedy Festival director Susan Provan is like travelling with a combination of Jedi knight and comic swami.
Wide-smiling ticket gatherers gently open curtains mid-show to allow her quiet entry, and afterwards comedians gravitate towards her, pulling the 12-year veteran of the job into conversation as she passes.
"The socialising comes after the festival," she said on Thursday night, heading to the next of more than 40 shows she has seen so far.
On stage Anthony Morgan is unleashing his Sackful of Bullfrogs on a warm crowd in a hotel bar. Provan, who has slipped in after running late from a meeting, laughs softly as Morgan describes how he has deviated from his "normally disciplined" shows.
The notoriously rambling, former hard-living comic first met Provan when they worked together in a Fitzroy pub.
Outside, Provan's partner, Mick Moriarty, is preparing to join Greg Fleet in their show Fleetwood Mick. The pair have a brief chat before she quick-steps to Kent Valentine's What Would Batman Do?
Provan checks her phone during the show, the screen hidden under her coat, for fires she might need to put out.
Later, she waves at musical comic Tim Minchin in the street - "I love Tim," she glows - and discusses the delights of his previous shows.
Upstairs, Tommy Dassalo is The Third Guy in a tiny room at the top of the Town Hall. Pipes run along the ceiling, making the show sound as if it is being performed next to a stream or in a urinal. It's called the Wee Room.
Provan is still laughing, and passing notes with celebrated Edinburgh Festival booker Karen Koren, who later jogs down to her next engagement.
Provan's days are long during the 31/2-week festival. They typically begin with an early morning play with her two-year-old, before the nanny arrives, emailing, phone calls, meetings and then a line of shows.
"I see shows because I like them, because I need to help choose the awards and because I help put together the roadshow," she says, describing the lucrative two-month-long tour.
We slip into the climax of Jason Byrne's Sheep for Feet and Rams for Hands. The hilarious Irish performer's show is sold out and Provan stands at the side, grinning as he hits his marks.
Half an hour later Byrne is outside the Festival Club, about to go underground with Adam Hills to pump up another set of punters.
Downstairs, Provan muses on the smaller acts she has enjoyed this year - The Glass Boat, Michael Chamberlin - as she talks to the night's producer about the set.
It's an early night, around 11.30pm, because she's judging Class Clowns tomorrow. That's her dilemma at this time of year. "I kind of need to be awake," she says, laughing.

[unfrufru]

hope this link works,

just posted a couple of articles on the barry's and general "how was comfest" type things.

Couple of mentions that again there is a deficit. And again mentions the lack of support for local acts over the big names

http://mosh.server101.com/vb/showthr...5469#post85469