I have received some thanks and kudos after my last post about things to keep in mind while writing jokes, so here is another comedy nerd article about something that isnโt often talked about; or at least I havenโt heard much discussion on it: pacing. Iโm not talking about the speed at which you disseminate your jokes, though that is important. Iโm referring to something that you really only have to deal with when headlining. When you are doing 45-50 minutes up to an hour, you will notice that you usually canโt just plow straight through with material. The attention span of the average decent crowd canโt handle listening to a host (10 min), guest spot (7-8 min), feature (20-25 min) THEN you (45-hour). This is why comics will get feature swollen head syndrome. Enough people come up to them after the show and say,ย โI thought you were better than the headliner.โ If youโre not careful, youโll start to believe it; and maybe it is true, but at the very least thereโs an asterisk or two that you have to consider. For whatever reason, crowds donโt want to like the host, and all the pressure is on the headliner to make it a great show. That leaves the lowest of expectations with the most amount of time in the middle of the show when you really donโt need to consider pacing or wearing them out, and the host has warmed em up (or dug a hole) for 10. You can just drop hammers for 25 minutes and blow the crowd a kiss on your way off stage. Well, donโt go into your first headlining gigs thinking youโll do the same thing but more of it.ย
In terms of pacing, in a set that is 10 minutes or less, you can jump around all you like. In a 15-20 up to 30 minute set, you probably want to start chunking your material for your own sake, and it will make you easier to listen to; plus youโre definitely going to have to chunk your material for headline sets, so you might as well start early. If you have 5 minute chunks of material, that means a 45 minute set list will only be 9 words. That is much easier to remember or to digest than 45 different words for every minute long joke. Now, on this theoretical 9 word set list, you may want to put a bold dash after the 5th or 6th word to mark when to pull back.ย
What is pulling back? Jesus, Iโm gonna tell you (jk). That is what I have defaulted to for lack of a better term to describe the point in time in a headline set when I pull back from doing material and riff around a bit. If all goes to plan, I wonโt be sacrificing any laughs, Iโll just be getting laughs from different types of things other than material. For me, I usually riff about the room itself if it is kinda weird, or the town weโre in, or crowd work in the rare case that I feel that is what is necessary to wrangle their attention. What this does is gives the audience a break from listening to material without them really noticing. Usually I will do one of my story type bits after this 2-3 minutes of riffing to ease them back into my set.ย
I find the best time toย โpull backโ is about 25-30 minutes into the set. I will even do a closer of sorts at the 30 minute mark, almost like Iโm doing a feature set, then pull back and riff, then story bit, then jokes up until my merch pitch if I have merch, then the closing chunk. I have found this is the best way for me to get consistent laughs throughout the set without having a good bit die due to the audience being burnt out on listening. I have called an audible before and pulled back to riff earlier in the set because it just felt like it was the right time to. I have also riffed around and did crowd work for longer because it seemed like they needed the break, or I had stumbled onto an interesting conversation with a crowd member. That is pretty rare for me though because I normally abhor crowd work. I do it when I need to and find usually that I am pretty good at it, I just hate putting so much in the crowdโs hands. If you are a crowd work comic but not sure when to go into it, I would recommend the pull back method.ย
When doing an hour+, I will pull back twice. Once at 20 minutes in, and again at 40 or 45. You can do whatever you want, but I would definitely recommend you do something, because audience burn out is aย very real phenomenon and only the headliner has to deal with it, (along with a check drop at a lot of clubs). If you didnโt know anything about it, you may mistakenly think you just suck and that people wouldnโt burn out if you were funny enough. I have been able to step on the gas for an hour straight, but I can count the number of times that has happened on one hand. I think itโs a safe bet to count on some crowd burn out and prepare for it because there is no downside to getting extra laughs from riffing anyway. I think the best sets for me are ones that coincide with shows where people ask me,ย โyou did an hour? No way,โ because it went by fast. Riffing at the right time has that effect of making someone feel like even the non-jokes were funny. When riffing is just a different joke muscle. Itโs all jokes, but only I need to think about that, ya know?
Well, thatโs all the thought for food I have for yโall.ย
