After managing venues where I watched over 200 comics launch their own shows, I can tell you the monthly-versus-weekly debate misses the point entirely. New producers frame this as a choice between quality and experience, but that's not the decision you're actually making.

The real question: What frequency can you sustain for 12 months without burning out or going broke?

Most comics get this wrong because they optimize for the wrong variable. They ask "What sounds impressive?" instead of "What builds the foundation for a sustainable producing career?" The result? Seventy percent of new comedy producers quit within six months, and frequency miscalculation is the primary cause.

When you're three months into comedy and decide to start your own show, you're making a decision with incomplete information. You don't yet know:

The monthly-or-weekly framework forces you to guess at all of these variables simultaneously. Monthly sounds manageable and lets you "focus on quality." Weekly sounds ambitious and promises "rapid experience gain." Both assumptions are flawed.

Monthly Show Reality:

Comics who start monthly consistently build expectations they can't sustain. With four weeks between shows, they envision:

Then reality hits. Promoting for a month doesn't mean people remember when the show actually is. Being selective about lineups doesn't matter if established comics won't commit to an unproven show. Having time to plan doesn't prevent the sound system from failing or the venue double-booking your night.

When a monthly show underperforms, You have four weeks to catastrophize before trying again. The gap kills momentum for both you and your audience.

Weekly Show Reality:

Comics who start weekly learn faster, but they learn the wrong lesson first: you can't sustain this pace.

Weekly shows require:

I've watched dozens of comics launch with "Weekly Comedy Showcase Every Thursday!" enthusiasm. By week eight, they're begging comics to fill spots. By week twelve, they're silently hoping nobody shows up so they can skip a week without admitting defeat.

The weekly-to-burnout pipeline is so predictable that venue managers can spot it coming: desperate Facebook posts asking for performers, declining audience numbers, and eventually a quiet disappearance with no announcement.

Let's talk about what these frequencies actually cost, because new producers dramatically underestimate the math.

Monthly Show Economics:

Most venues that host comedy shows need 40-60 paid audience members to make the night worthwhile for them. As a new producer, you're probably doing a free show or a small door split, which means you need those numbers to justify the venue continuing to give you the room.

Forty people is a lot when you're three months into comedy. Your draw is maybe 8-12 friends and family on a good night. So you're dependent on other comics bringing people, which means you need strong comics who have draws. But strong comics with draws don't need your unproven monthly show.

The gap between what you need (40+ people) and what you can deliver (15-20 people) creates a math problem that one month of promotion doesn't solve.

Weekly Show Economics:

Weekly shows can survive with smaller rooms because consistency builds audiences over time. Twenty to thirty people works if your overhead is low—typically a bar back room with minimal venue requirements.

But weekly shows have hidden costs:

That third cost is the killer. Every comedy scene has a finite number of performers, and they can only say yes to so many producer requests. When you ask weekly, you exhaust your lineup pool by month three.

Here's what the data from successful producers shows: the ones still running shows 18 months later started bi-weekly (every other week), not monthly or weekly.

Bi-weekly gives you:

Month 1-6: Start Bi-Weekly

Run shows every other week for six months. This is your producer training period.

Track these metrics at each show:

After 13 shows, you'll know:

Month 6 Decision Point:

If all of these are true, consider moving to weekly:

If any are false, stay bi-weekly for another six months.

If attendance is under 20 or energy is below 2, move to monthly and focus on building draw and reducing stress before scaling frequency.

The Frequency Adjustment Decision Tree:

Strong draw + low stress + venue support = Try weekly

Moderate draw + sustainable energy + okay venue relationship = Stay bi-weekly

Weak draw OR high stress OR venue concerns = Move to monthly

Notice what's not in this decision tree: how long you've been doing comedy, how funny your material is, or how ambitious you feel. Those don't predict producing success.

Producing shows teaches skills that performing alone never will:

These skills directly translate to career advancement. Comics who produce successfully get booked more because:

But you only gain these benefits if you produce sustainably. If you burn out in six months, you've just demonstrated the opposite: you overcommit and can't follow through.

The comics I've coached who built sustainable producing careers started with frequencies they could maintain, tracked real data, and adjusted based on evidence rather than ambition. Three years later, many run multiple shows at different frequencies because they learned the fundamentals through a sustainable launch.

The comics who started weekly to "gain experience faster" or monthly to "focus on quality" mostly aren't producing anymore. They learned that frequency chosen for the wrong reasons leads to predictable failure.

This Month:

Choose bi-weekly as your starting frequency unless you have specific evidence that another frequency is more sustainable for YOUR situation (established draw, producing experience from other contexts, unusual venue arrangement).

Secure a venue for a six-month commitment. Two shows per month is much easier to commit to than four shows per month or one show per month that has to be perfect.

Build your core lineup: Identify 12-15 comics who will perform for you reliably. You need this depth before show one.

Month 1-3 (Shows 1-6):

Run your shows. Track the five metrics listed above. Don't judge your success yet—you're gathering data.

Expect problems. When the sound system fails, when a comic doesn't show, when only eight people attend—that's not failure, that's producer education. How you handle these situations is what you're learning.

Month 4-6 (Shows 7-13):

Your metrics should stabilize. Attendance variance should decrease. You should know how long things take. You should have systems for common problems.

At show 13, do the math: Add your attendance for shows 5-12 (ignore the first four, they're outliers). Divide by eight. That's your real draw.

Compare your metrics to the decision tree above. Be honest about the numbers.

Month 7 Decision:

If you hit the criteria for weekly, try four weekly shows and reassess. If it's sustainable, continue. If it's not, return to bi-weekly.

If you're solidly bi-weekly, stay there and focus on improving show quality and growing your audience. There's no shame in sustainable bi-weekly producing. Many successful producers run bi-weekly shows for years.

If you need to move to monthly, do it and focus on what's actually limiting you: draw, energy, or venue relationship.

The monthly-versus-weekly debate assumes you should pick one and stick with it. That's wrong.

You should pick the frequency you can sustain for a year, gather data for six months, and then make an informed adjustment based on evidence.

For most newer comics, that means starting bi-weekly, tracking real metrics, and letting the data tell you when to change frequency.

The goal isn't to run the most shows or the best shows. The goal is to still be producing 18 months from now with a sustainable show that builds your career.

That's how you become a producer who books themselves and others. That's how you build leverage in the local scene. That's how you turn producing from a money pit into a career asset.

But only if you're still doing it a year from now.

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