MICF Wrap-up: Metrics free success, fun failure.

I've done solo shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for a couple of years now, so it's worth a look back on this one and see what was different about it, and what was familiar.

This is not the first festival I've really struggled with my show in the first week, but this year I didn't feel like I was polishing it as much as I was totally reassembling it night by night.

I did manage not to read reviews this year though, which was good. This show was simultaneously my most 'standup-ey' and my most insidiously confrontational. Deliberately playing with the idea that events, like electrons can be both wave and particle (good and evil), and the 'fixing' nature of the observer effect as an analogy of judgment might have been hard to properly staple a narrative down to, but I feel like I managed it in the end. To my satisfaction at least, if not to the satisfaction of all.

I had a nice boost in audience numbers over the month, presumably as a result of the ABC airing of The Resistance and my guest slots on The Bugle which I enjoyed very much for their own sakes. That said, I was sad I didn't get to deploy my favourite 'room half full' joke as often as I wanted to. (This is the way to make a loss into a win; have a joke you really enjoy that you can only use when you have depressingly small numbers. When a sold out room makes you feel a twinge of sadness at a missed opportunity, you know you've set your ego up with some solid defences)

Because I was in a Festival Managed Venue, and forgot to ask my management to compulsively update me on ticket sales (a compulsive hourly koan when you have easy access to those figures) I didn't tend to find out how many people were going to be in my audience until the end of the show (the Chinese Museum being hard to find, about a third of the audiences tended to come in the dark after the house lights went down). This was a fun game.

I loved having Tea With Alice listeners in the audience, as often my early ideas get an airing on that show before they become jokes. I also feel like I'm gathering 'my people' in along those channels and it's always a thrill for me to meet Tea With Alice fans, because I don't check metrics (it's good to know that they exist).

Having mentioned not checking reviews, not looking at metrics and not knowing ticket sales, I have to mention that this was probably my least publicity oriented festival. I was writing jokes for The Project most daytimes, so I didn't do my own flyering, and I made the decision not to do a huge heap of online plugging (mainly to spare the overlapping Venn diagram of people who follow a lot of comedians from too much desperation, and those who are overseas from too much irrelevant FOMO inducing shrapnel).

I also didn't do much (any) late night socialising, which I think was likely a mistake, given that a lot of work, connection and warm friendships are woven through those post-midnight hang times. I feel sad to have not spent more time with my out of town friends. On the other hand it did mean I was human for all that writing work in the daytime, and that I didn't end up getting any of the normal festival diseases (mental and physical)

I massively enjoyed doing Monday night spots at The Shelf before it's indefinite hiatus, and the post shelf dumpling gatherings were as close as I got to socialising apart from the excellent Phill Jupitus' ethereally relaxing drawing mornings in at the National Gallery of Victoria. Drawing was a lovely way to start the day, and I felt happily filled up in the tanks by it.

Lessons learned:

I will try to socialise more in Edinburgh I think, but overall this felt like a very workmanlike festival - not joyless, satisfying but very pragmatic and output focussed. I should make more room for fun, and not overload my plate with other projects during the MICF month.

I will plug more for Sydney and Perth as they're only 4 day runs, so it won't get a chance to become grating. Also, the show is good now, so I don't feel like I'm offering people a gamble of a night.

Any questions? Any criticisms? Hit me up.

Xx

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