Are audiences no longer willing to pay for comedy?

An established London comedy club is scrapping its admission fees in the face of slumping audiences.

Sean Brightman of We Love Comedy decided to go free after last night’s show – featuring David Trent, Thom Tuck and others – attracted just 17 people willing to pay the £10 admission.

He said he also made the decision because of competition from other nights offering professional comedians for free.

Comedian Brightman, pictured, has also reduced the frequency of his nights at The Pipeline in the City of London to monthly instead of weekly. He runs another night at the Balham Bowls Club – scene of last night’s poorly attended gig – which will also go free.

In a statement, he said: ‘With all the “Pro Free” comedy comedy clubs putting on acts such as Abandoman, Richard Herring, Mark Watson, Tony Law etc for free on one hand and the bigger clubs with marketing power on the other, being stuck in the middle is not the way forward. Especially when the nights end up costing me around £200 to put on.

‘Where just a year ago, we were regularly getting a decent number of audience in on a weekly basis (twice weekly for quite a while), this is no longer the case, so I'm cutting back… and I'm changing the model to a “free” pro night. I hope we can cover some of the costs in donations on or before the night. 

‘We shall see if this experiment works... Hopefully this gives us more of a chance of getting noticed and getting a decent audience, until more follow suit and this becomes the new “‘normal” way to promote comedy in London. Time will tell.’

Future acts lined up to appear at We Love Comedy include Tony Law, Holly Walsh, Adam Riches and Will Franken.

Published: 25 Apr 2014