What Is a Bringer Show? NYC Comedy Explained

A bringer show is a comedy show where you only get stage time if you bring a set number of paying audience members. Usually three to five people, sometimes more. They buy tickets, they often face a two drink minimum on top, and in exchange you get five minutes on stage at a real club with a real audience.

Bringers are one of the main ways comics get stage time in New York, alongside open mics. Most new comics in NYC will be offered one within their first few months.

Whether you should say yes is more complicated than most advice admits.

How bringer shows actually work

A producer or club books a lineup of newer comics. Each comic is told they need to bring, say, four paying guests. If you bring four, you perform. If you bring two, you might get cut, or bumped to a worse slot, or allowed up briefly as a favour.

The club fills seats it would otherwise struggle to fill. The producer gets an audience without marketing. You get stage time in front of people who are not other comedians, which is genuinely different from an open mic.

That last part is the real argument for them. At a typical open mic the room is comics waiting their turn. At a bringer the room is civilians, and material that works in front of civilians is the material that eventually gets you booked.

What a bringer show actually costs you

The ticket price is not the cost. The cost is your friends.

If you do a bringer with four guests at twenty dollars plus a two drink minimum, you have asked four people to spend fifty or sixty dollars each on a night watching eight newer comics, most of whom they do not know. That is around two hundred dollars of other people's money to get yourself five minutes.

You can ask people to do that once. Maybe twice. The people who will come are a finite resource, and most comics burn through them in a couple of months.

The second cost is quality. A bringer audience is made of people who came to support one specific comic and have no interest in the other seven. The room is attentive during your set and restless the rest of the time, which makes for a strange night and a misleading read on your own material.

When a bringer show is worth doing

There are real cases.

If you have never performed for a non-comic audience, doing one bringer teaches you something no open mic can. That lesson is worth the cost once.

If you want footage, a bringer gives you a club stage, decent lighting and an audience that laughs. Comics need a tape to get booked, and a tape from an open mic looks like what it is.

If the club is one you want to work at eventually, showing up and filling seats gets you known to the people who book it.

When it is not

If a club is running bringers every week and the lineup is always different newer comics, that is a business model rather than an opportunity. You are the marketing department.

If you are being told the bringer is how you get booked properly, be sceptical. Most comics who get booked got there through open mics, producing their own shows and knowing people, not through filling seats.

If you are doing a third bringer in a month, stop. Your friends have noticed.

The free alternative

The reason bringers work is that stage time feels scarce when you are starting. In New York it is not. There are 418 comedy open mics listed on Comediq and 128 of them are free, running every night of the week.

Doing three free mics a week costs you nothing and gets you more reps than one bringer a month ever will. Use bringers for the things open mics cannot give you, which is a real audience and a usable tape, and get your volume somewhere else.

Frequently asked questions

What is a bringer show in comedy?

A bringer show is a comedy show where comics are given stage time on the condition that they bring a set number of paying audience members, usually three to five. If you do not bring enough guests, you may not perform.

Are bringer shows a scam?

Not exactly, but the exchange favours the club. You provide the audience and the club provides the stage. They are honest when disclosed upfront and a problem when they are presented as a booking opportunity rather than what they are.

Do you get paid for a bringer show?

No. Bringer shows are unpaid. Your compensation is the stage time, and your guests pay for their own tickets and any drink minimum.

How much does a bringer show cost?

Nothing directly for the comic. Your guests typically pay fifteen to twenty five dollars each plus a two drink minimum, so bringing four people can mean two hundred dollars of other people's money.

Are bringer shows worth it for new comedians?

Occasionally. They are useful for performing in front of a non-comedian audience and for getting usable video. They are a poor way to build regular stage time, because the audience supply runs out fast.

What is the difference between a bringer show and an open mic?

An open mic is free or cheap, requires no guests, and the audience is mostly other comics. A bringer requires you to supply paying guests and performs to a real audience at a club.

Get stage time without bringing anyone

You can browse every free open mic in New York, or see all open mics by borough and night with the cost and sign-up method listed.

Start with Brooklyn, Queens or beginner-friendly rooms.