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How To Promote Stage Comedy In a Geeky Way?

Posted by Unknown on from the tragedy-for-the-masses dept.

shaitand writes "I recently went to a renaissance festival where a man (Arthur Greenleaf Holmes) performed some of the most obscene NSFW and hilarious comedy I've seen in a long while. The show was free and he had CDs and DVDs in his bag and accepted donations. I certainly gave one. But why is this guy doing niche fairs and not HBO specials? I contacted him and he said that he would love to break out and because of his costume he has trouble and the nature of his act he has trouble getting on to traditional stages. How would you promote such an act? On further conversation he said he is an avid supporter of free flow of information and strongly encourages pirating his work far and wide. Since he is primarily interested in making money with live performance and not media sales I thought if he took this to the next level and released a DVD under a creative commons license the exposure and interest generated might help him break into new forums with his act?"

5 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. WTF?!?!? by OzPeter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    First of all .. WTF is "Promote Stage Comedy in a Geeky way?" . To paraphrase a short green hairy dude "Promote or don't promote .. there is no geek in it".

    Secondly .. he doesn't have an HBO special because (by your own and his estimation) he is not mainstream. No matter how much promotion you do, your potential audience will always be small if you only fill a niche.
     
    Thirdly WTF is this doing here?!??!?

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    1. Re:WTF?!?!? by SirSlud · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Jeff Dunham is depressingly unfunny, never mind that he bases his show on broad racial stereotypes. You'd go see that guy because you're a simpleton. And Jeff Dunham didn't achieve success because of YouTube. He's been in the business since the early 80s. He opened for Bob Hope in '83. Does that sound like somebody for whom YouTube self promotion worked? I expect no less stupidity from any fan of his routine. For the record, he's a very talented ventriloquist, but his comedy is about as lowest common denominator as it comes.

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      "Old man yells at systemd"
  2. Re:Well... by Xeno+man · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd post an article on Slashdot with a link to some of his material. Maybe post it in the form of a question asking how it relates to geeks in some way. That might spark some debate.

  3. Why isn't he on HBO? by skine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He's not on HBO because the Renaissance fair crowd is a very small segment of society.

    Your average person doesn't find mildly rude poems to be that funny.

    And, yes, I did say mildly rude. Not "some of the most obscene NSFW and hilarious comedy I've seen in a long while." There is more obscene, NSFW, and hilarious period comedy in Blackadder - a prime time TV show that first aired 30 years ago this June - than in the clips that I've been able to find of him. We live in an era where "offensive" comedians turn to necrophilia jokes to shock audiences because pedophilia, incest, and rape jokes aren't seen as being all that shocking anymore. A sonnet about a knothole that looks like a vagina is the work of your average high school drama club member, not your average professional comedian.

    This guy is exactly where he belongs; doing niche fairs.

  4. Where to start... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    why is this guy doing niche fairs and not HBO specials?

    Maybe because you're not the ultimate arbiter of what's funny and what isn't.

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