Eugene Mirman's ridiculous, eponymous comedy festival is bringing Boston & Cambridge a weekend of laughs in June. Help make it happen!
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 Learn about accountability on Kickstarter
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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Your name will be printed in the festival guide, in small print, as a Cheapy Cheap-face.
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Your name will be printed in the festival guide, in small print, as a True Gentleman.
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An autographed Festival VIP Badge that doesn't get you any special access to anything. It will be available for you to pick up from the merchandise table at any show during the festival.
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Your name will be printed in the festival guide, in small print, as Racist.
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Your name will be printed in the festival guide, in small print, as a Classist, Privileged Dickhead.
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An autographed headshot of Eugene that says, "AMERICA'S LITTLE DARLING" at the bottom.
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10 seconds of silent eye contact with Eugene at the Official Eye Contact Booth, during the festival at The Sinclair (exact time TBD).
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A classic 'Zine written, photocopied (on pretty colored paper), hand assembled, autographed and numbered by Eugene.
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You can submit a photo of yourself to be printed on 1/4 page in the program with a caption that Eugene writes.
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A customized "VIP kit" filled with fun little surprises including knick-knacks previously owned by Eugene.
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You and a friend are invited to afternoon Hors d'oeuvres & Hugs hour long event with Eugene at The Sinclair, 4pm on Saturday, June 29th + a festival poster signed by Eugene.
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Come celebrate Ken Reid's birthday with Eugene and Boston comics at a private roller skating party in a crappy town 20 minutes from Boston on Wednesday night, June 26th.
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Beverages, Braids 'n' Bone Marrow "tots"- Eugene will do his best to braid your hair. Each backer gets one beverage, two braids and one order of bone marrow "tots", 6pm at The Sinclair Kitchen on Sunday, June 30th.
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Eugene will record an outgoing message for your voicemail and email it to you + a festival poster signed by Eugene.
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Place a 1/2 page advertisement in our festival program. If you like, Eugene can ad some words or doodles to it.
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Eugene will call someone and ask them out on a date on your behalf, live on stage during the Pretty Good Friends show at The Wilbur. You have to have their phone number.
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You and a friend are given a tour of Lexington's historic Battle Green by Eugene (where he gave tours when he was a teenager) followed by the lunch buffet at Yangtze River with Eugene and festival producers on Friday, June 28th.
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Place a full page advertisement in our festival program. If you like, Eugene can ad some words or doodles to it.
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Eugene will tweet something that either promotes or makes fun of you or your company to 280,000 followers (some of which are probably bots, but some of which are John Hodgman). Plus the tweet will be printed, framed, and autographed with the inscription, "Welcome to the future of advertising, fuck-face!"
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A dumb, weird painting by Eugene. Disclaimer: Eugene can't paint well, but he will try to put an emotion or geo-political message into each painting.
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Official sponsor of all the caviar at the festival. We'll provide red caviar to the performers and audience throughout the festival. A medium sized sign with your (or your company's) name will hang in the lobby of The Sinclair for three days bragging to the world that you are the official caviar sponsor of the festival.
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An autographed VIP trash bag that gets you and a friend into all festival shows and VIP seating where available. Must be worn to gain access. Don't wait in line, stroll up to the front with your buddy, in your autographed VIP trash bag, give them your name, and come on in!
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A full page ad in the festival program that Eugene and festival producers make that might make fun of you or your company, but in a nice way, unless you're Monsanto or some shitty thing like that. And if you are, that's fine of course, they'll help create an ad that makes it clear your product is terrible.
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Sponsor of the cardboard VIP room. Enjoy seeing your logo on the outside of a specially built small cardboard room filled with bottles of Cognac, pillows and tasteful, 1960s pornography.
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Eugene will fly to any domestic destination of your choice (at a mutually agreed upon date) and hand deliver a letter for you.
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