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Tim Fulton 00:08
Welcome to the confluence cast presented by Columbus underground. We are a weekly Columbus centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I’m your host Tim Fulton. This week. Good comedy is a reflection of society. Next month for five days over 150 comedians will grace 10 stages throughout the city for the inaugural Columbus Comedy Festival. On the occasion of the upcoming event, I sat down with Walker Evans, co founder of Columbus underground and the Comedy Festival, and Hannah Rome’s co owner of hashtag comedy. We discuss the impetus for and the execution of the festival, the opportunities in the Columbus comedy scene and their focus on increasing public awareness of the city’s abundant talent. Admittedly, I tried to write a Whittier introduction for this week’s episode, but I’ve decided to leave the jokes to the professionals. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at the confluence cast.com. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Walker Evans, the co founder of Columbus underground and Hannah Rome’s the co owner of hashtag Comedy Club. How are you guys?
Hannah Romes 01:25
Good, good.
Tim Fulton 01:26
Good. We are here on the occasion of the upcoming columns Comedy Festival. Walker for the video audiences holding up stickers that are available. Yes. Walker, tell us about the about the fest. Sure.
Walker Evans 01:40
It’s the first year for the festival. There have been comedy festivals in Columbus in the past. It’s the first year of this version, I should say, right? You know, we do some larger scale event production through Columbus underground, like the Columbus Coffee Festival, which is also coming up and first weekend in October. But yeah, I and my wife and co founder of CU along with me have been comedy fans for ever and ever. We love touring acts, we love the local scene and kind of thought that it was ready for a reboot of the festival idea. Okay. So we kind of we sat down with a pretty large group of like all the different, you know, venue operators and promoters and stuff, including Hannah, like last October, almost a full year ago and sort of said like, what if Columbus underground runs the festival as a whole, and we’ll program some of it. But everyone else can kind of program their own venues. And we all promote it as one big collective festival. So like, everyone can kind of do their own thing. The best way they know how and everybody wins.
Tim Fulton 02:39
Rising Tide. Yeah, yeah. Talk me through why that’s a wide net, right? Like, was that the intent from the beginning? Sort of like, you’re only going to get buy in from everybody, if you are involving everybody? Yeah,
Walker Evans 02:56
yeah. And I mean, you know, you’ve got like the funny bone, which has been sort of like the default powerhouse of comedy in the city for 40 ish years now. But then a lot of sort of newer brick and mortar spaces like hashtag, which we’ll talk about in a second. Yeah, the attic, which is just a little over a year old and Old Town east, that don’t tell events, which are pop up events. So they’re not a brick and mortar, but they’ve been going for about two years now. And so it would be it would definitely be easier to just say we’re going to do a festival like on our own terms without anybody else. And then all of a sudden, you’ve sort of like, kind of driven yourself in as a wedge, I guess. And I would rather see something. Because the end of the day, like the benefit should be like we want the festival to go well, but we want people to continue to support comedy around. So if they can become fans of these venues and these comedians in these producers in the process, then they’ll go out and hopefully keep coming back. Right. Yeah.
Tim Fulton 03:54
Hanna, tell us about hashtag Yeah,
Hannah Romes 03:56
yeah, sure. So we started as an improv troupe 10 years ago actually born out of a class from the funnybone an improv class. Yeah, and then from there, we were doing shows weekly places like madlab upfront shadowbox live Natalie’s and Grandview woodlands tavern. And then we actually we’re going to open up a comedy club in March of 2020. I don’t know if you knew this. But then COVID happened. Obviously, this is like what’s the
Tim Fulton 04:21
I don’t know if you knew this? About COVID I think you’re looking at me.
Hannah Romes 04:28
Right? You’ve told me the story. Yeah. So eventually that obviously couldn’t happen. But then we got through it. We were doing online classes and shows during COVID. And then a year about after the pandemic we decided you know, it was about time to try something out, open up a brick and mortar space to do continue our classes but also do shows and improv and stand up and sketch so we’ve really honed in on programming since about November of last year and regularly since January, February. We’ve been doing shows every weekend, we still do our improv classes, and we have a sketch troupe now. So it’s really trying to just bring on all different types of comedy and kind of create a space that’s very welcoming for people that want to try it, or have been doing it for a long time and might have a different like alternative style or even just more traditional comics. But trying to like, break down the barriers of entry for comedy is something that we’re really passionate about,
Tim Fulton 05:24
and what’s your background? What brings you to improv?
Hannah Romes 05:28
Sure. So I started doing improv about seven years ago. And then I’ve been doing stand up for about three and a half ish years, I actually started with hashtag hashtag started before I was involved. I started as a cast member about five years ago, that I started helping with the marketing. And then I became owner a couple years ago. And that’s kind of what I think helped propel us into treat creating this brick and mortar spaces. Okay, trying to just like, after I saw the stand up comedy scene, you know, I really wanted to try to like tie in the improv space with the standup space. Because before it was kind of two separate groups. And I think that we’ve really been able to successfully do that with different shows and things like that. And you’re
Tim Fulton 06:07
obviously so let’s talk about the economics of it. There’s different madlab I imagine you’re paying like a rental fee. Right? Whereas like Natalie’s are live a traditionally live music venue. It’s ticket sales, right? What is there? Is there a spreadsheet? Where you were like, here’s where I how we can economically make this work? Yeah. Like how talk to me from like, a business perspective. Like, what your plans were there?
Hannah Romes 06:35
Yeah, sure. So my background is in business. I’ll say my other co owners, Chris, hi, burger he has he does business or his full time job. And then our other owner, Matt White is a corporate lawyer. So we’re all very, we’re all very focused on like, trying to make sure that like this makes sense, right? Yeah. And this is, we all have full time jobs. And they’re all you know, business oriented. So we definitely want to try to make this work, obviously, economically, the biggest driver for us to cover our rent and expenses has been our classes. And we’ve been doing classes, consistently, probably the most out of like everything else that we’ve been doing outside of improv shows. So that’s been a really big driver for us to be able to have the freedom to be able to do shows and have be a little bit more experimental and take this time to really grow sustainably. We’re in it for the long haul. And so we realize like, There’s no quick wins, right? Like whatever you do, you have to work on building like a strong foundation, right? What I think we’ve had with our brand for the last 10 years, and now building it into a physical space is a different kind of animal, but still really fun. So our classes, we have corporate workshops, as well, where we’ll go to different organizations and work with their HR departments create, like team building exercises, things like that. And that all helps and funds the same thing of just bringing people joy, and you know, whether it’s in the office space, or at a comedy show, or whatever,
Tim Fulton 07:52
and is your is a goal that one of you guys gets to quit your day job. Yeah,
Hannah Romes 07:56
hopefully, at least two of us do it too. Okay, it would be ideal. But I’m really happy with my day job. And I really just am very passionate about this, the Columbus comedy scene and trying to bring you know, more eyes on it. That’s why I’m so excited about the festival, but also creating a space for different performers. Like as a female comedian, myself, I definitely understand how a lot of comedy is kind of like a boys club and a lot of ways. And so being able to connect with different performers from like marginalized communities and giving them a space and being very open with that, I think is good. Another thing we’re really passionate about as business people is trying to foster a very professional feeling for performers. I think that can be very difficult sometimes to do. But I always encourage performers to think of like, themselves. Yeah, you know, I have friends in the comedy scene. But I consider everyone my colleague more than anything else. And I will always try to like, present hashtag in that way of very like, like a business transaction. So we try to be very transparent about like, paying performers, paying people that work the door or the bar and trying to give people opportunities. You know, we have payment plans. If somebody can’t afford a class, we can try to work with you, but trying to be very open with that kind of thing. So yeah, something that we really are passionate about.
Tim Fulton 09:12
And I assume you’re making yourself available for rentals, too. Yeah, yeah.
Hannah Romes 09:15
Yeah. So if people want to do we actually have a wedding coming up, I think in a few weeks, Oh, somebody’s going to rent it out for wedding, which is really exciting. Not me. But it’s fine. But yeah, we have stuff like that too. going on. We’ve had pop up coffee shops before. And just some other things too. But yeah, we try to keep it pretty open for the community. And we’re right in the short north. So there’s tons of different you know, cool starter companies that want to collaborate or get involved with I’ve definitely loved you know, just being in that area is great. Yeah.
Tim Fulton 09:45
And are you guys basically presenting your company during the comedy festival, like your sketch shows and your improv stuff like you didn’t bring in outside performers for it?
Hannah Romes 09:57
We have both. So that’s something that we’re really passionate about. So For our stand up shows we have, I think we have 13 or 14 comedy shows happening at the festival, which is Oh, a little over 700 seats and our venue set sits like 55 to 65 Max. So I definitely was stressed booking all of those, but it’s, it’s been a fun challenge you did a great. I sweated a lot. But I we’re working with a lot of our internal cast. So we have a couple you know, main cast, we have TBD, the improvised musical, which is a fully improvised musical it has theater performers and improvisers, comedians from Columbus, we have a accompany us to always plays music. It’s one of my favorite comedy shows in Columbus, I can say that because I’m not in the cast. Okay. They wouldn’t let me in and they shouldn’t have. And then there’s another comedy show improv show called True story, which I am in and it’s like, story based improv show, we have a sketch troupe called hot people near you. And they’re also performing at the festival. And then we have a bunch of different standard performers coming in from Cleveland, we have people from New York coming in, all over. So I return, I’m trying to really, you know, shine a light on the talent within Columbus that’s really, you know, something that I’m personally really passionate about, but also trying to build a network. So we can get the name out there as Columbus being such a popular comedy city outside of just Ohio. And that’s why I kind of view the comedy festival as being a great anchor for that. Yeah.
Tim Fulton 11:22
And I
Walker Evans 11:24
was just gonna say like, one of the great things about working with multiple groups and multiple venues and multiple kind of show runners in this is that we’ve been able to collaborate on some folks. And so we’ll bring someone in and I might book them for a show that Columbus underground is doing at like the performing arts center on Thursday, and then that person is involved in the show on Friday on on Friday at hashtag and so we’re able to give people multiple opportunities across the city and multiple spaces. And so that’s been really fun while I’m while
Tim Fulton 11:54
you’re not saying there’s that is what makes it worth it for that person to come into, yeah,
Walker Evans 11:58
if they were just coming in to do like a quick five to 10 minute set and then leaving, it wouldn’t be worth it. Right. They if they have multiple opportunities, while they’re here, that’s, that’s pretty great.
Hannah Romes 12:07
It’s kind of a really good kind of prototype for other talent to come in, even during like not during the festival, too. I know, like a lot of cities, a comedian will come in out of town, and they’ll be booked at multiple venues. So it’s kind of a cool way to test that out with a more organized structure than maybe us having to, like reach out to independent producers. Yeah, it’s, uh, I think Columbus definitely is very fruitful for comedy and comedians. So trying to like, highlight that as great.
Tim Fulton 12:32
And talk about the selection process that you went through, you put out applicate. So there are both. First of all, tell us some of the headliners that you have. Sure.
Walker Evans 12:42
Well, before I do that, I also want to shout out the nest is another one of our venue partners. Okay, I didn’t mention them earlier. So funnybone, the nest, hashtag attic. And don’t tell her kind of the five main venue partners. Okay. And then Columbus underground is booking shows at the key the Columbus Performing Arts Center, and MATLAB got it. Okay. Don’t even buy out. So, yeah, we started booking headliners back in January. So we reached out to people to make offers to be sort of like headliner level, right? Or like showcase level and then opened up an application process for anyone that just wanted to submit to be a part of that. And that was open January 15 to march 15. Okay, it was a $10 entry fee. Okay to be considered, you submit a video, we had a team of people watch and score all of them. We had almost 250 We we had two lists, we had a stand up list and then an improv slash sketch lists, kind of two different buckets stand up
Tim Fulton 13:39
and other right guy kinda, yeah.
Walker Evans 13:43
Stand up is the more popular form, but we want to have a variety of things. So we have like film based shows, we have variety shows, we have a puppet show, like, okay, there’s a lot of stuff going on all week long. So everyone’s tastes should be Yes, fine. But in the selection process, we had almost 250 people apply. I think we were able to book like, 75 out of that across like all the different venues. Okay.
Tim Fulton 14:08
And yeah. Okay. I mean, is it as you have on your website? It’s 150 Plus comics, right? Yeah.
Walker Evans 14:14
Yeah, that’s across all venues all days, you know, whether someone is like a full hour long headliner and the biggest venue down to someone who’s doing like five minutes or is a part of an improv troupe, like we’re trying to, we’re trying to recognize everybody involved. So top to bottom, talk
Tim Fulton 14:30
through that sort of like, after the applications like you’ve got what, like a spreadsheet, just like big old spreadsheet, and you’re watching all the clips that they submitted, and like I was one of the judges. So I watched every single one you and did you have other judges? Did you end up having a pool of judges that
Walker Evans 14:48
kind of went through so it wasn’t just like one person’s opinion, right? What they were the
Tim Fulton 14:51
comedy festival where it’s just these are Walker’s favorite. Exactly,
Walker Evans 14:55
yeah. Well, I mean, you know, everyone’s taste is different and you want like a variety of stuff. meals and stuff, because that’s something that I don’t like somebody else might and vice versa. So, yeah, good to have different tastes involved. And so once the score was assigned, then that one form, so it was a $10 entry fee. And then you could be booked by hashtag nest attic funnybone. Us and don’t tell like it all went into the same pool. So you didn’t have to reapply for each group. Right?
Tim Fulton 15:23
Yeah. Well, and that scoring, I imagine was like a good guide for folks. But like, like, maybe they’re not gonna watch like the lowest scored one. Right,
Walker Evans 15:33
right. Right. And some of them are like, you know, oh, I recognize this person. And even though they got a six out of 10, like, I liked their material, and maybe that wasn’t the best video they sent. A lot of people are just sending us like iPhone videos with bad sound. Yeah. So like, you can’t always get a full, you know, sense of that person. Can I tell you my personal favorite? The application processes?
Tim Fulton 15:55
Does this person get in? Oh, of course. Oh, okay. Yes. Making sure yes.
Walker Evans 16:00
Peter brick. Oh, man did I don’t know if you watched it. I
Hannah Romes 16:04
love Peter Bragg.
Walker Evans 16:05
He’s great. I’ve seen him perform before. So I was already familiar with his style. But special shout out to Peter. He submitted a full hour long, like professionally produced our set. Oh, okay. And it was amazing. And I watched the whole thing from start to finish. Like I started watching it. And he had Nikki Winckelmann. Like, introduce him or bring him on, which is just like, Okay, well, you know, that’s off to a good start. Yeah. And he starts going in and like his jokes are hidden, and it’s great. And I’m like, live audience. I assume live audience madlab Okay. Yeah,
Hannah Romes 16:35
I think it was I will say I think it was his, he recorded a special rate. So that was I think, late last year. So that was probably what he sent in. But he’s, it’s Peter B Rieck. If you want to give him a shout out, he’s one of my favorite comedians in Columbus. He’s amazing. It’s great.
Walker Evans 16:52
But I started watching this and after a couple minutes, I paused it to look at the timestamp. And I’m like, oh my god, this is a full hour like, is it you’re just in mode. You’re just watching, watching watching. Like, this is really funny. And I watched the whole thing.
Tim Fulton 17:04
And so what was the logistical nightmare then of like, getting all these people slotted?
Walker Evans 17:15
Just spending a lot of time with spreadsheets?
Tim Fulton 17:17
Was it just a lot of like, Sam, a comedian that like got an email, and was like, hey, we’d like to have you in the festival? Yeah. May I have gotten three emails? Like one from you one from hashtag one from the attic? Yeah, we’re like, potentially. Okay. Yeah. And what were your emails? Like? Were they like I am, I would like to consider you for a slot in this show. Yeah.
Walker Evans 17:41
Are you available Thursday at 10pm to do a 20 minute feature set for this headliner. And here’s what it pays. And here’s the basically I just copied and pasted and like sent, like, the basic details for each of the shows out to people. There was
Tim Fulton 17:55
a lot of mail merge of like, you know, a mail merges, yes. Do you?
Hannah Romes 18:00
I don’t mail
Tim Fulton 18:02
merges. I don’t even think people really do it anymore. Because we have CRMs. But you have like a spreadsheet of like, here’s somebody’s name. Here’s somebody. Oh, data and playing and now I don’t know, I’d have like unique fields to fill in. No,
Walker Evans 18:15
because it was a little more high touch than that. Yeah. But then you they literally I was able to back but I was able, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it was, you know, and then creating contracts and having like, everybody signed something. Yeah. Yeah. So it was a lot but I mean, we started in January. So and then the process
Tim Fulton 18:34
the so with the headliners. They say, is it all different with them? Like some have guarantees? Yeah, we’re again, we’re back to economics. Given
Walker Evans 18:43
the weeds Yeah, it’s it’s a mix. Yeah. Cuz a lot of the headliner so like, the big folks, you know, kind of up on the top of this flyer are Jason banks, local guy, Michael, Ian Black, who’s huge che knows him from the back in the 90s. Tony Rock who was booked by funnybone So he’s doing like five shows at the funny bone. Okay, one of Chris rocks, brothers. Oh, okay. His other brother Jordan. Also on there. Okay, we
Tim Fulton 19:07
got two out of three rocks. Yeah. And I hope they make jokes about Well, one of them’s bigger than the other was a great that.
Walker Evans 19:12
He’s like, I’m related. All the Right. I’m gonna butcher it. He’s related all the rocks. Chris, Tony, kid. He’s like, but if you haven’t heard me, that’s okay. I’ve been living under a lot of rocks. He was on the show. Love on Netflix. Did you watch the Paul Ross show? I don’t think so. Julian. What’s her name? She’s on the bear too. And community, Julian
Tim Fulton 19:38
of Julian. I want to say Henderson but I know that’s not right. Gibbs, Julian J. Yeah.
Walker Evans 19:42
He was on that show. Anyway, I digress. I read to Fumi Ave Dan Smith clay Ratcliffe, Jeremiah Watkins, Sam J. But you know, these are a lot of like, mid to high range comics I would say like and a lot of them are like on the way up pretending like they’re growing by leaps and bounds right now. So I think it’s kind of cool that this is a festival where you can pay 20 bucks to go to a show and like see someone on their way up? Yeah. Versus like, Oh, I’m going to see Bill Burr and nationwide arena and it’s $150 tickets. Yeah, you know, like these people hopefully you know, will be like the next arena comics that you’ll see. Okay. Yeah, this like neighbor GETSY was in town earlier this year, and he played nationwide. I think he did two nights and nationwide arena. Okay. But like you could have seen him at like the Grandview tavern, like eight years ago for 15 bucks. Okay. So I was gonna Grandview what’s the woodlands? Thank you. Yeah. In Grandview Yeah, but woodlands tavern. So the original question though. Sorry, was their contracts? Yeah, their contract? Like you want to see their contract? No, I’m
Tim Fulton 20:49
just curious. Like, and I’m not going to do please don’t tell me what’s in the contract. But I imagine they are all they’re all different. And they all have some nuance and like they have like, some people are demanding a guarantee. Some people are like, I’m this flat rate. Yeah, people are like, hey, I need a hotel.
Walker Evans 21:05
They’re all a little different. Yeah. So with with like, headliners and stuff, some of it. Like we had boilerplate contracts that we sent out that they signed, and some of them have agencies and management. So we’re actually dealing with their contract. Yeah. Right. And, and they’re sending us their boilerplate. And so you know, you start looking at it, and a lot of it is more for like if they were being booked at something like the funnybone. And it doesn’t make sense for a festival. They’re like, we need the right to be the sole seller of merch on the night of our performance and you’re like, sounds like maybe at the funny bone. That makes sense if you’re headlining a funny bone show, but like this is a festival and they’re like, just redline out anything in the contract you don’t like right so we took a heavy pen and like went through everybody
Tim Fulton 21:46
have like riders of like, one must have a bowl of green m&m
Walker Evans 21:50
One only one has a rioter. Okay, do I call them out for it? No, I don’t do that. I like it. I were
Tim Fulton 21:59
Is it A? Don’t tell us who has the writer but is there anything funny in the writer?
Walker Evans 22:03
It’s a very specific bottle of tequila. Okay, and like a sparkling water grapefruit juice mixer. Okay. And I’m like, That’s pretty badass. We’re doing we’re doing that. Of course, I was always kind of when I was at the west. It wasn’t like a bowl of m&m kind of situation. Got it? Yeah.
Hannah Romes 22:20
That’s what mine is my
Walker Evans 22:23
m&m flavored
Hannah Romes 22:24
vodka. Like to be infused with,
Walker Evans 22:28
like, dissolved in the bottom.
Tim Fulton 22:29
And how did you guys Hannah, when you were sort of looking at the weekend like you, you’re putting your your like, obviously, our content is going to be there. And then did you sort of say like, Okay, how much else can we fit in? Yeah,
Hannah Romes 22:43
yeah. And we, you know, I kind of realized we had at least like one main show that we wanted to do for every single night of the week. So I also forgot the show that I do, which is called me mom’s house. I dress up like my Appalachian grandma. And there’s a possum puppet that’s like my sidekick. It’s kind of like Pee Wee’s Playhouse.
Tim Fulton 23:01
Are you hold? Are you a ventriloquist in this or is the puppet performed by someone I
Hannah Romes 23:06
Lindsey Bo’s savage tech, who also is doing a show during the festival. But yeah, she will also be voicing his name is Kyle the possum. But we have a we have a show every single night of the week. That’s kind of like our one of our main shows. So our schedule improv show stand up shows that we do. And then we have at least we have more than one show every single night of the week. So I tried to filter in some more like stand up centric things. Yeah, we’re also partnering with imposters Theatre in Cleveland, who’s been a really great supporter, you know, we’ve collaborated with them multiple times. They’re great. They’re coming down on Saturday, actually, Michael Busch, the owner of that was on community for a very small moment. I think he had a scene that’s on the Saturday we have the big imposters Comedy Night is what they’ll be doing but basically trying to like shine a light on things that people can see regularly you know, every month in Columbus that hashtag while also adding some fun freshness of people from out of town or you know, maybe bigger comics that we don’t always collaborate with so trying to like kind of diversify our content has been a main focus for you know how I approached booking but also using the spreadsheet was a really big help too. And that was a monster in and of itself. I’m so happy I did not have to
Walker Evans 24:23
like Walker did. Yeah, it was fun. I enjoy and I started early because we started accepting applications January 15. And they started coming in Yeah, I’m like I’m gonna start watching I’m not gonna wait for it to close right I start watching the videos I started right away right so you just watch a couple of day and
Tim Fulton 24:38
what are the logistics are you only worried Walker about basically your shows because obviously the other venues everybody well, yeah, but you can handle the they get they are venues they know how to handle and do their own stuff, right? Yes.
Walker Evans 24:52
Like we were not like staffing hashtag or having someone scanning tickets at the door at the funny bone like that’s all on them. Yeah, we’re also not taking a portion of any of their money for any of the venues and stuff like Columbus underground is just doing the events that we’re booking our SCADA Yeah, we’re handling we’re running those from start to finish and making our money back from those.
Tim Fulton 25:13
What are the other logistics that people don’t think about? I think you do have like a transport person. Yeah.
Walker Evans 25:19
We hired a guy will Hancock referred dropping all the name all the names, you know, will Hancock?
Tim Fulton 25:28
Who is the driver? He is not in a show?
Walker Evans 25:30
Correct? Yeah. But Simon Fraser, there’s a name drop for you. Simon recommended him. Because he this guy has helped with other comedy festivals and run transportation for other company festivals. Okay, so basically, like you bring in all these headliners, you know, or even just other people from out of town. Yeah, other performers from out of town. And it’s like, cool, you know, I’m there. And I’m, you know, getting paid to be there. But now I’m spending all this money on XY and Z and like Ubers can eat up a lot of that very quickly. Yeah. So basically, we have complimentary drivers not for the attendees don’t think we’re paying for your Uber home. But for the performers, so they have a ride to and from the airport, from hotel to venue, venue to venue, like that sort of stuff. So there’s some logistics there. But it’s nice to have someone who is experienced in that kind of running that from start to finish. We’re operating like a little festival headquarters check in area, so everyone can kind of check and get their itinerary. There’s some food and drink there some comfy seating, sort of almost like a pre show green room where you can kind of relax. Check your email. This is for the performers, again, great performers and volunteers and staff and stuff. Got it not for the general public.
Tim Fulton 26:38
We have badges.
Walker Evans 26:40
Can we have badges? Some will have like badges or lanyards. Sorry.
Tim Fulton 26:44
Can I? Yes, done. Thank you.
Hannah Romes 26:47
You’ll have a lady in this room.
Tim Fulton 26:48
I have the code to get into this office. Yes, I should get it.
Walker Evans 26:51
It might be plastic, and it might say Sheriff, but you will have a badge.
Hannah Romes 26:56
And he might need a bag before.
Walker Evans 27:01
But yeah, there’s a ton of logistical stuff. We are working on an after party as well on the Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And so I’m someone that’s going to be running all of that, and that will be open to the public. Okay, yeah. It’s sort of coming to hobnob with your favorite. Yeah, we’re just a place for people to go and have fun afterwards and stuff. So but yeah, we’re working. We’re working with NASA as a hotel partner. So the headliners that we’ve promised a hotel room to okay, if they’re staying for you know, more, more than a day. We’ve got a good downtown hotel partner for that. We’ve got a lot of great restaurant partners. I’m not going to read the whole Yeah, sponsors. But thanks, GCAC. And, you know, downtown Columbus,
Tim Fulton 27:38
do you want to? Do you want to talk about the other? Like the workshops, II type things that you’ve got to? They’re
Walker Evans 27:45
not really for the general public? Okay. Yeah. I mean, we are doing some like industry development stuff. Yeah. So that like the comedians, especially like the smaller local, younger, you know, fresher Comedians can have access to some sort of, like class type of panels, okay. On the topics of like marketing, how to get booked in clubs and other cities, like the roles that agents and management play. It wouldn’t even really be something interesting to the general public. I think it’s very, like insider basis thing for me.
Hannah Romes 28:15
But I will say hashtag is going to be doing federal public workshop. So yeah, yeah. So Michael Bush from Cleveland, who I mentioned earlier, he will be doing some kind of workshop, we’re deciding if it’s writing or improv focused. But we’ll have something like that. We also are doing an a free improv workshop for anyone who’s ever wanted to do improv. And these are open to the general public or comedians coming in. And then we also have a writing workshop we’re working on likely with professional comedian and writer Mike Larson, who’s from Columbus and his book on the festival as well. So we have a few different things as well. But that’s a hashtag. We’ll be doing that over the weekend. But those are general public in case if anyone here is like, listening, they’re like, damn, I think I could do stand up or, yeah, check us out on our website.
Tim Fulton 28:59
Okay. Very cool. Yeah. And how the comment I think I made to you at the beginning of this is like, there’s a lot to navigate, right? Like, there’s a lot to, how would you suggest that people are like, I’m going to go, and I’m going to take in two or three nights of the festival or two or three events? Yeah. How would you suggest they sort of navigate that?
Walker Evans 29:22
Well, on the website, wellness company, fast.com, there is a schedule page, and everything is listed chronologically, by date and time. So that’s a really easy way to sort of see like what you want to go and do each day of the week. You can also sort by performer, you can sort by venue. So there’s a lot of different ways to kind of look through all the information, see what you want to do. Okay, we decided to take the approach of just making it fully ala carte, but all of the tickets are pretty reasonable. I think the most expensive ticket might be like 35, most, most of them are like 20 Okay, I know several that hashtag are like 17 Yeah, roughly. Yeah, there’s some shows that are 10 You know, like kanessa There’s a free, free class, you know, so that it’s all up and down across the board, rather than making people commit, you know, like $300 to get a wristband and then be able to get in everything. Logistically that also would have been a nightmare, because everyone has a different ticketing platform and all that. But if you look at the Netflix is a joke Festival, which might be the largest Comedy Festival in North America now that Just For Laughs was canceled for this year. Okay. They’re planning on bringing it back. They filed for bankruptcy. Yeah. But the Netflix is a joke model is also ala carte. So okay, it’s like two weeks of shows happening all over Los Angeles, and you pick and choose what you want to go to?
Tim Fulton 30:37
Got it? Yeah, got it.
Walker Evans 30:38
I mean, there might be VIP packages to that as well. I’m not sure but but if you just wanted to go there and go to one show, you can do that and spend that one ticket. There you go.
Tim Fulton 30:47
Yeah. What Walker has surprised you about putting this together?
Walker Evans 30:54
Um, I mean, it’s been really nice that everyone’s been very, you know, eager to come to Columbus, everyone’s been really great to work with not just performers, but like the agents and stuff, too, because it’s something that I’ve never really done before is like, yeah, to talent agents in Los Angeles and be like, let’s talk contracts. But everyone’s just a person trying to do a job. You know, they want to see their, you know, the people they represent get work. And so yeah, it’s just a conversation to have. But yeah, no, no major hiccups or hang ups. You know, I think we’ve tried to create something that like, there’s enough room for everyone to kind of do their own thing. Yeah. And hopefully it continues to get bigger and better every year. If we hadn’t been doing the Coffee Festival for eight going on nine years. Yeah, we’ve already kind of run larger scale events. So we kind of know the ins and outs of like, what could go wrong? So yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, knock on wood, but no, no surprises so far.
Tim Fulton 31:52
Yeah. And then we’ll do the music festival next year. Let’s do it. Hannah. I have Walker, you know, a couple times a year, every I end every interview with the same two questions. They are what do you think Columbus is doing? Well, and what do you think Columbus is not doing? So well?
Walker Evans 32:09
Okay. And it doesn’t have to be comedy. Yeah, it can be something completely off the rails? Oh, well, I’ll
Hannah Romes 32:15
keep it to comedy related. Speak Out of Pocket. I think the comedy scene has grown really fast. In the last year, you know, I’ve been I’ve seen a lot of great comics coming onto the scene. And from feedback I get from comics that come from all over. Columbus has a lot of opportunity for growth and for giving different comedians platforms maybe earlier than they would be able to otherwise. And it kind of helps create this, like snowball effect of getting better and better. And I think that’s been really exciting to see that with improv as well. I think something that we can an opportunity that we can grow with is getting more eyes of the general public on the comedy scene I have right now. It’s like almost Columbus’s like best kept secret is how many comedy clubs there are how many opportunities for live entertainment, you see, you know, people are on their phones on Instagram, watching comedians all the time, but they’re not aware that there’s over 100 of really talented comedians in the city that are performing at any given weekend. I mean, any given night, right, like there’s open mics throughout the city, all these opportunities to find things. And so you know, even at hashtag, we have not, I booked most of the shows, and I’m working with local producers, if they do an independently produced a show, and we do not really repeat talent. And you know, in the last six months, seven months that we’ve been doing regular programming, and I think that is definitely a nod to how diverse Columbus is. I don’t think any Columbus comedy venue is competing against each other. We’ve had multiple shows sell out at different venues on the same night. And really, it just gets to getting the general public excited and aware of the comedy scene and I think that’s why I’m so excited about the festivals. I think that really addresses a huge need right now and I’m really excited to see how this grows.
Tim Fulton 33:56
Absolutely. Thank you both so much. Thank you, Tim. Thank you for listening to the confluence cast presented by Columbus underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at the confluence cast.com Please rate subscribe, share this episode of The confluence cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite comedian. If you’re interested in sponsoring the confluence cast get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info at the confluence cast stop calm. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson, our producers Phil Cogley, I’m your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.
