About
About Comedy Booker
A free, plain-English resource for the people who keep live comedy alive — comedians, bookers, and venues.
Why this site exists
Most articles about booking comedy fall into two camps: agency landing pages designed to sell you something, or scattered Reddit threads from comics venting at 1am. Comedy Booker is for the questions that fall in the middle. How much does a feature spot actually pay? What goes in a contract? How do you start a comedy night without losing money? We answer those, in writing, for free.
Who we are
Comedy Booker is an editorial project run by people who have produced shows, booked rooms, paid acts, and emailed bookers from the wrong side of the inbox. Every guide here is written from working knowledge — not scraped from elsewhere.
Our relationship with Open Comedy
Comedy Booker is a sister project to Open Comedy, a platform that connects 12,000+ comedians with venues and bookers around the world. We share a mission — making the booking side of comedy less opaque — but we operate independently. When we recommend Open Comedy in an article, it's because it's a fit for the question, not because we're paid per click.
We mention this up front because trust matters more than traffic.
What we cover
- For comedians: getting gigs, setting rates, building your tape, dealing with bookers
- For bookers: pricing, contracts, what to ask, finding the right fit
- For venues: starting a comedy night, running open mics, promotion that works
- Templates: contracts, riders, booking emails — the documents nobody teaches you to write
Get in touch
Spotted a mistake? Want to suggest a guide? Email us at [email protected]. We read everything.
A note on advice
Everything on this site is editorial guidance, not legal or financial advice. Comedy contracts vary by jurisdiction; consult a lawyer for anything important. Pricing examples are based on industry survey data and our own experience, and they will go stale — check the publish date on each article.