The Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival is the world’s first sincere-and-ironic comedy festival and celebrates a close-knit comedy community, while making fun of the trappings of comedy festivals. Before the 6th year of the festival in Park Slope, Brooklyn in September, we're taking it up to Cambridge and Boston in June! But in order to bring the festival on the road, we need a little help.
The festival is a grassroots event created and run by Eugene Mirman, Julie Smith and Caroline Creaghead. The performers all participate at a fraction of their normal fee, because of their enthusiasm for this dumb, but charming event. Previous performers include: Jim Gaffigan, Mike Birbiglia, Kristen Schaal, David Cross, Daniel Kitson, Fred Armisen, Sarah Vowell, John Hodgman, Michael Showalter, Janeane Garofalo, John Oliver, Jon Benjamin, Yo La Tengo, Todd Barry, Reggie Watts and of course, John Oates.
In the past, our festival has been funded by our ticket sales, a small gift from Sub Pop Records, and a few ads in our program. We'd originally started the festival as a joke, but enjoyed putting it on and wanted to keep it going. Each year the costs and time put in have grown and we toy with the idea of corporate sponsors to cover them, but mostly shy away from it. A couple years ago, we turned to Kickstarter to help pay for some of our costs at the Brooklyn festival, including an Awkward Party Bus and a petting zoo. Traveling our friends from New York and Los Angeles to come do the shows and putting them up in a hotel can get expensive, so we're launching this campaign to keep ticket prices affordable, and still do ridiculous and fun things. Here's a list of the things we will do with any money we raise:
-Pay a living wage to the people who work really hard to make this event possible.
-Build a cardboard VIP room for festival attendees filled with bottles of Cognac, pillows and tasteful, 1960s pornography.
-Pay performers enough money to afford at least one very nice meal or a pair of shoes.
-Hopefully bring in special, surprise guests we otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to.
-Provide red caviar for the audience at some of the shows.
-Provide the opportunity for people to have their picture taken at the festival with a baby goat.
-More oddball surprises!
See our full schedule of events, here: http://eugenemirman.com/2013/05/eugene-mirman-comedy-festival-boston-cambridge-june-28-30th/
Risks and challenges
As with any lofty, but silly goals, there can always be pitfalls. Some of what we want to do with the money is very possible — cover the cost of hotel rooms, travel, paying all the artists and employees. With each festival we've done in the past we've always had lots of ideas for free, silly things we want to do and many work out. In years past we have had a petting zoo outside a venue, given out small appliances, had an awkward party bus, mimes, cotton candy machine, a pig roast, etc. So, without promising that we can definitely hire two men — one dressed as William Dawes and one dressed as Paul Revere — to make-out outside of one of the venues, we can certainly do our best, or at least provide free cotton candy and caviar to those who attend.
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Funding period
- (16 days)