What Comedy Competitions Are Really About

Ask most comedians why they entered a comedy competition and they'll usually give the same answer. To win. That's understandable. There are prizes, bragging rights, and sometimes cash involved. Somebody gets crowned champion. Somebody gets their picture on a flyer. Somebody gets to tell their friends they beat a room full of comedians. But that's rarely the biggest thing that comes out of it. The strange part about comedy competitions is that the people sitting next to you in the green room often end up becoming more important than the trophy. A comedian you meet during round one might become your podcast guest two years later. The comic you nervously introduce yourself to before your set could become your producer, your writing partner, your roommate during a fringe festival, or the person who texts you asking if you want to open a weekend in another city. Comedy careers are built surprisingly slowly and surprisingly socially. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, Atlanta, and other major comedy cities all have versions of this. Competitions become temporary communities. People who otherwise would never have met suddenly find themselves spending weeks together, watching each other perform, celebrating wins, surviving losses, and sharing notes afterward. The audience sees a contest. The comedians experience something closer to a class reunion that hasn't happened yet. There are practical benefits too. Most competitions cost somewhere around twenty dollars to enter. In exchange, you're generally guaranteed at least one show. That's not a bad trade in a profession where stage time is the currency everyone is chasing. And if you advance? Even better. More stage time. More audiences. More opportunities for people to remember your name. Of course, there is usually a catch. Many competitions require participants to bring audience members. That's the rub. A lot of comedians love the idea of competing until they discover that part. Because eventually the question becomes less about whether you're funny and more about whether three people are willing to leave their apartment and watch you try to be funny. Hopefully by now you've got three people in your corner. If not, the competition may be teaching a different lesson. Comedy competitions have become a fixture in major comedy markets for a reason. They create excitement, discover talent, and give developing comedians goals to work toward. Organizations like Laughing Buddha have been running competitions and festivals for years, helping comics meet each other while creating opportunities to perform in front of larger audiences. The same is true for club-run competitions throughout the city. Every year, rooms across New York create tournaments that introduce comics to audiences and audiences to comics. And then there are newer competitions still building their own traditions. The St. Marks Comedy Competition is currently accepting submissions through July 3rd. Like every competition, somebody will win. Most people won't. But years from now, a lot of the participants probably won't remember their exact placement. They'll remember who they met. And oddly enough, that's often the thing that ends up mattering most.