Live from the North Carolina Comedy Festival!

This month's show from the archive hasn't even been around long enough to really be archival. :) But it was a really fun set and I wanted to share it with you.

The audiences at the North Carolina Comedy Festival were outstanding! This was my 2nd set of the festival. They actually gave us multi-cam footage of our sets, but I haven't had a chance to edit it yet.

Check out the video and then I'll give you "inside comedy" knowledge down below.

Here's a behind the scenes of comedy for you. We're always trying to get a good 5-minute tape. It's our main tool for booking new venues.

And it's seemingly impossible to get a perfect one. Even this one... It's a little slow at the beginning, but picks up part way in. In this set, I was the last comic on at one of the very last shows of a week long festival. I was amazed the crowd wasn't exhausted.

My first set of the fest was a couple days before. Also a barn-burner, but still not perfect. There was one joke that didn't land (that I left out of this one) and a couple heads walked in front of the camera.

Now, if I had my way I'd just grab the first 90 seconds of the first show and edit it together with this one. But that's a no-no for booking videos. Venue bookers want to see one set all the way through, from one camera, with no editing. They figure editing means we left out the weak parts. Because, duh, we did.

So not only do we have to get the performance right and hope the audience stays on board all the way through, we also have to deal with waitstaff walking in front of the camera, noise from the bar, the acoustics of the room, the lighting, and some audience member who decides to talk loud at the table next to the camera.

A good booking tape is gold. This one's at least silver.