World Series of Comedy

One week from tonight I will be performing in the World Series of Comedy in Las Vegas. It is a huge opportunity for so many reasons should not have happened. Last April I performed in a satellite show that could have helped improved my score on the video that I submitted to the contest. I didn’t do well. It was the worst set at the worst time in my career.  I pulled out my solid 7 minutes that I could do in my sleep and 99 times out of 100 does well, for some reason I didn’t connect with the crowd and that 1 time where it doesn’t work came on that fateful night.

For all intents and purposes I was praying that my video would be good enough to get me into the Main Contest. It got me into the Satellite show so anything was possible.

I booked a flight to Las Vegas anyway, because along with the contest there are things that can be learned from this event. Bookers and comedians from all across the country attend so the networking alone is worth the trip. Not only that but there are also seminars where you can learn a few tips and tricks about how to package your comedy for clubs and bookers. So the entry fee wasn’t just for the contest it was for a conference.

When the initial list of 101 comedians came out I wasn’t on the list. This did not surprise me. I knew that a lot of great comedians had entered into the contest, and any contest or festival that you submit to is ridiculously hard to get in to. The World Series of Comedy was one of probably nine or ten festivals/contests that I entered in the last 6 months.

A few weeks ago I got an email saying that I was moved into the top 101, mostly thanks to the number of comedians who weren’t able to make it for the week of shows. I barely could focus while at work knowing that I was going to Las Vegas not just to learn and enjoy my first trip to Vegas, but to also perform.

So a week from tonight, I will perform in a show with 14 other comedians, each of us performing 5 minutes of comedy. The last 2 weeks I have been going through all the jokes in my head contemplating which ones I want to perform. When performing in shows like this, I’m constantly thinking about getting as many jokes in as possible while maintaining a semblance of a good flow.

But what really matters is that I give the best 5 minutes I can. I did that in April and it didn’t work out for me. There’s a chance a week from now that could happen again, and if it does, oh well.

But if does go well, then that’d be great. I really hope that next week at this time I’m writing about how I argued with an airline about getting my flight changed so I can stay through to the finals.