6 Responses

1. David Angelo says:

   August 23, 2007 at 3:58 pm

   right on! The ‘venue’ comic trend is a turn for the worse for middle/newer comics who are trying to make a living – since fame is the only factor to get you paid.The last refuge is to breed a type of up-and-coming comic that excels at brown-nosing so that they can attach themselves to larger names as an opening act.That said, I am available the entire month of september for up to 30 minutes!-David Angelo

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2. charlie says:

   September 5, 2007 at 9:21 am

   Nice. I’ve been trying to get Bert to book me for years.

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3. unkcomic31 says:

   November 25, 2007 at 2:44 pm

   Bert Haas should ask himself the same question… when was the last time he booked a show just because it was a great show. It has been a long time. This man books Larry Reeb 12 times a year( I am not suggesting the he is a bad comic )the Motto at Zanies is “If you worked here in the 80’s you can work here today” he runs a retirement home for comedians most of the havent changed their acts since 1982 I consider myself a slightly above average comedian and I wont work Zanies because the pay for a middle is bad and I get tired of the audience coming to me saying you should have been the headliner most of the time they are right. That’s why I work where I can get respect. If there is a diluted comedy pool Zanies is Very Much part of the problem

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4. zanieshater says:

   November 25, 2007 at 6:28 pm

   Bert Haas is the biggest hypocrite in the comedy biz!!!! I was told I could not headline at Zanies because he has to book his friends of 20 years first! What? So no matter how funny or professional I am it doesn’t matter? Comics from out of town get more respect at Zanies then the Chicago comics. Ask Bert Haas why they don’t have Last Comic Standing auditions there anymore? Because he only let comics that work for little pay audition. The judges said there is no talent in Chicago. Thanks Bert for giving them the best comics to see. He should retire. Look at his schedule and count how many times Larry Reeb and Dobie Maxwell names appear. If you want to see the best Chicago comics you better not go to Zanies!!!

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5. Brian McKim & Traci Skene says:

   November 25, 2007 at 7:21 pm

   We re-read Mr. Haas’ comments and didn’t see him saying that “there is no talent in Chicago.” Perhaps he said it somewhere else. If so, a citation would be helpful.As for Mr. Haas putting up “comics that work for little pay” in front of Last Comic Standing judges, we saw Jimmy Pardo and Larry Reeb in the house during the LCS auditions, which would contradict that allegation.And, if we’re not mistaken, Reeb and Maxwell are considered Chicago comics. The fact that they are booked regularly at Zanies would belie the statement that “Comics from out of town get more respect from Zanies than Chicago comics.”Regardless of the “official” home market of Maxwell or Reeb, we would say this: Ask any comic if he gets respect in his home market. It is true almost everywhere that a comic has a tough time shaking early first impressions in his home market. It’s a fact of life.And, for some reason, club managers perpetuate the notion that local is not as good as imported.We speak from personal experience. In 1993, we managed to get booked as co-headliner at the Funny Bone in Philadelphia– a club that was owned by a company outside the area. The week went spectacularly, and we managed to get plenty of press and good to excellent houses for all shows. A success all around.When it came time to settle up at the end of the week, we told the manager that (although we had been living in Burbank, CA, for the past five years), we were, for all intents and purposes, “local” talent, she replied rather matter-of-factly, “Oh… if I had known you were locals, I never would have booked you.”When Catch A Rising Star occupied that same venue some time later, the manager of the club was quoted in the press as saying that the policy of the new club would be to de-emphasize local talent as much as possible while booking comics mainly from New York and Los Angeles.Of course, it’s their bat and their ball, and they can book it however they see fit, but to go out of your way to alienate the local talent (and in a seemingly arbitrary manner, not even consider local talent) seems to us to be a rather clumsy way to do business.And Mr. Haas can book his room in whichever way he sees fit.And, when he says this:<>“My question to my fellow bookers is this: When was the last time you booked a show just because it was a great show and not because you thought it would sell tickets? If the answer is over a month ago, then the shortage of talent exists only in your mind, not in the market. And there will always be a shortage of talent.<>He doesn’t mean to say simply that “there will always be a shortage of talent.” If we interpret it correctly, he’s saying that (If you are merely using the ticket sales as a criterion for booking), <>there will always be a shortage of talent.<> The shortage, if we understand his message, will be in the mind of the shortsighted booker and not be supported by reality.In other words, he argues for booking creatively, he argues for booking lesser-known (and possibly local) acts. He argues for bucking the trend of only bringing in big names or using ticket sales as the exclusive criterion for booking. If we’re to go strictly by what he wrote in the letter to our publication, we fail to see any hypocrisy.If the reality on the ground in Chicago contradicts that, we’re all ears. (We could, however, use a little less bitterness, a bit less vitriol, and perhaps a lot more of a dispassionate analysis than is contained in the above comments.)And, in defense of Larry Reeb (who, in our opinion, needs no defending), he is a regular on Bob & Tom, he is a consummate professional, he delivers, he is funny.

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6. unkcomic31 says:

   November 28, 2007 at 1:29 am

   The comments that were made by Zanieshater are an example of the frustration that a lot of comedians who try to make a living in comedy have. I would like to say this about the so called diluted comic pool. If you pay peanuts you get monkeys. Although I agree with Mr. Haas that the club should keep the lion’s share of the revenue because it is the club who carries all the responsibility I think we can all live with that but what I see is greedy and cheap bookers. Some Comedy Clubs will not provide a place to stay for out of town comics you they think are good enough to work their club and will offer them wages that make the waitress at the club wish the comedians were working for tips. I mean is it too much to ask for a decent place to lay your head after the show and a reasonable wage I don’t think so and it would not cut that deeply into the clubs profits. If there is a diluted comic pool it should not take a booker 6 months to a year to look at a comedians audition DVD or video download. I can’t count the number of times I have worked with a washed up headliner only to see a pile of unwatched Audition DVDs on the bookers desk. Bookers are cheap or greedy or both. There is a booking agency on the east coast that charges a fee to comedy clubs to book their room then tells the comedian that they booked at that club to send them 15% of what the club paid them or they will not be booked by them again and if you look at the website of these clubs you will see headliners there that wont even get feature work at the A rooms in the countryNow it may be easy for someone to say if you don’t like the way a comedy club treats you then don’t work there… I don’t and you missed the whole point of this article the diluted pool of comics If there is a diluted comic pool don’t blame it on TV or the comedians that don’t work on their act blame it on the bookers its enough talent out their do your job get a ice cold beer and look at some DVDs. It is time to stop booking shows only to find out the only funny guy on the show…MAY be the headliner

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