Making a living off of laughs
Alex McKenzie quit his six figure job, sold his house and moved into an RV with his dog all in an effort to chase his dream of becoming a standup comic. From struggling in the Canadian comedy scene to selling out a 2,000 seat arena, we'll uncover the grit and determination necessary to make it in this industry.
Key Takeaways:
Get an insiders perspective rom a full-time standup comedian who shares his journey of discovering and owning his own talent, and understanding how to make it in the business of comedy.
Support the show:
☕️buymeacoffee.com/whatsyourfree
About the show:
Sam Laliberte - entrepreneur, digital nomad and freedom seeker, hosts the Freedom Lifestyle Podcast to expose people to the many ways you can design your dream life and unlock your own version of the freedom lifestyle. Her guests have empowered themselves through flexible work as a way to “have it all” - financial, location AND schedule freedom.
Making a living off of laughs
Alex McKenzie quit his six figure job, sold his house and moved into an RV with his dog all in an effort to chase his dream of becoming a standup comic. From struggling in the Canadian comedy scene to selling out a 2,000 seat arena, we'll uncover the grit and determination necessary to make it in this industry.
Key Takeaways:
Get an insiders perspective rom a full-time standup comedian who shares his journey of discovering and owning his own talent, and understanding how to make it in the business of comedy.
Support the show:
☕️buymeacoffee.com/whatsyourfree
About the show:
Sam Laliberte - entrepreneur, digital nomad and freedom seeker, hosts the Freedom Lifestyle Podcast to expose people to the many ways you can design your dream life and unlock your own version of the freedom lifestyle. Her guests have empowered themselves through flexible work as a way to “have it all” - financial, location AND schedule freedom.
It's so hard. At the beginning you suck, like you just suck for so long. It's not that fun, because you're going up there and it's not like you're just like crushing and everyone's loving it. You're like, oh, this is so fun. You're going up there and you're like, okay, I did it, like I did the thing, I'm okay. It's just kind of relief, like some people laugh, you feel all right.
Speaker 2:You're listening to the Freedom Lifestyle podcast series. I'm sharing relatable stories of freedom seekers who ditched conventional office life and courageously asked for more. The energy just completely shifted. My entire being just felt so free. My business was still generating income while I was on the beach.
Speaker 1:I decided to quit and just stay at home. I really can't work for anyone but me it's literally just doing whatever the hell you want to do.
Speaker 2:As for me, I'm your host, sam, and I've spent the last four years creating a business that allows me to work from anywhere. The Freedom Lifestyle looks different for everyone. What's your free? You're listening to a new episode of the Freedom Lifestyle podcast, where I share relatable stories from everyday people who have found a way to leverage flexible work arrangements to design their life. And, for the first time ever on the Freedom Lifestyle podcast, we are going to hear the story of a full-time standup comedian.
Speaker 2:Alex McKenzie was born and raised in Prince George, bc, and describes himself as a happiness cheerleader. In 2019, alex quit his six-figure job, sold his house and moved into an RV with his dog, all in an effort to chase his dream of becoming a standup comic. He's since become an international sensation, performing to sold-out crowds, and has started to even produce his own shows. In this episode, I learned so much about the business of comedy and where the real money is. I kind of just pegged Alex as a classic standup comedian, going from town to town, show to show, booking himself at different pubs and different local comedy nights and different lineups, and definitely that is part of Alex's journey, but he's really learned that producing events and being part of all aspects of event production and creating events with 5,000 seats. That's really where the money is. And so, in addition to becoming a standup comedian, he's actually built this whole event-producing business and offers that as a service. And guess what? He's one of the stars of the show.
Speaker 2:I learned so much from Alex. Of course I asked him questions that I think anyone would be curious about. How did you realize you were funny? How did you realize you were funny enough? Give me a joke? He said everybody asks him that. So of course we had to do that too. But no, alex is very impressive. He's been at it now for four years. He talked about how he funded this journey, how he was down $60,000 at one point, different local organizations he tapped into for loans, and that's actually how Alex and I met. I was the emcee at the Leap Conference in Prince George a couple months ago and I got to introduce Alex. He was our comedy break. We hired him as a comedian to energize us in between speakers. He did just that. He's hilarious, he's super charismatic. I immediately knew I wanted to have him on the show to talk about his lifestyle and how he's really built his name for himself to becoming a full-time comedian. So with no further delay, here's Alex MUSIC. Alex, welcome to the Freedom Lifestyle Podcast. How's your day going today?
Speaker 1:Oh, amazing. So far, so good. It's pretty nice. How's your day, Ben?
Speaker 2:Good yeah, sun is shining. Went for a walk at lunch in Squamish. Where are you taking today's call from?
Speaker 1:Right now in Prince George.
Speaker 2:Prince George, where we met a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my hometown. I'm just here for a few more days before I go back to Vancouver.
Speaker 2:Nice. What would you normally be doing right now if you didn't have a podcast interview with me?
Speaker 1:Oh, normally Two o'clock, so I would have just finished at the gym and then I would be doing work emails. So I usually do work until, like usually 2.30 to 5.
Speaker 2:What does work emails entail? As a comedian, I guess that's my first question. Are you all in full-time on your comedy career?
Speaker 1:2,000 percent. Yes, okay, that's all I do is stand-up comedy. So the thing I guess I don't know if I can say it's interesting about my comedy career, but I am 100% self-produced. So what that means is I pretty much book all of my own gigs. I very, very rarely have somebody call me and be like, hey, we want you on this show. I mean, that happens, that's actually how we met, was through one of those. But for the most part I self-produced everything. So that's why in Prince George here we actually just did something which I don't know if anyone in Canadian comedy has ever really done. We self-produced an arena show last Saturday, so five days ago.
Speaker 2:What does self-produced mean? Because I thought you meant you were pitching different events, for hey, you should have me at your club, or I saw you have a comedy night. You should add me to your lineup tonight. Is that what you mean? Or do you mean like creating your own experience and the whole vibe?
Speaker 1:I do everything. So basically I started out originally it was just me, so what I do is I phone venues. So I started with pubs and bars. But now we've scaled up to the point like this past weekend we did an arena. So I just rented an arena. So it's like 5,000 seats and I just say how much does it cost to rent this for the night? And then they say it costs this many dollars and I'm very happy to share all the financials with you if you guys are interested in that stuff as well. Totally.
Speaker 1:So yeah, just rent, basically rent the venue and then from there then production starts. So then I have to then go and find a sound and lighting crew that'll bring in sound equipment and lighting and be able to do all the tech specs. And then we do graphic design. So then I have graphic designers that put together a graphics and marketing kit and then I have like a social media manager that then launches all of that. So originally it was all just me, but now I've got four employees. So now we've got a full team. I have like a booking agent, a social media manager, graphic designer and then an administrator who does all the flights and hotels and stuff and the administrator is my mother.
Speaker 2:Wow, amazing. Is this a side hustle for her, or is she retired and now just works for you?
Speaker 1:She's retired and this is now her full-time thing. For me that she likes to do, that's really sweet. Yeah, it's really cool. It's really fun working with family. At the same time, no one gets under your skin like family, so you're like oh man, it's sometimes hard doing all the event production and then having mom or is being there with you doing it, but I do know that there'll be a time where there's no one. I'm gonna want more at my events than my mother, so it really charged the time that we have together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so beautiful, and I'm sure maybe she was one of the first people in your young life who laughed at your jokes and told you you're funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, definitely Family. Because they are like I remember when I went to go do this, it was I won't don't want to say the least supportive, but they were the most fearful of the whole thing. Right, like all your friends and people are kind of close to you. They're just like, oh yeah, man, like quit your job and go do comedy, that'll be great. But then, as soon as you have like your family, they don't say that Because they obviously have different Worries for you. You know, like if it doesn't go well, my friends are like well, whatever you know is where, if it doesn't go well, your family you're like, oh, you're gonna be back knocking on their door. You know being a burden to them. So they're a little more hesitant about like the whole thing.
Speaker 2:And I'm sure they just want the best for you. I don't think anybody wants their child to have a challenging life or life to be any harder than it needs to be. So I'm sure it's a little bit like hey, we don't want you freeloading any longer than you need to be, but also just wanting to protect you from, I'm sure, what is a Challenging career a lot of the time to your mental health, putting yourself out there that way, taking on all that risk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's exactly what it is. It's not just like the financial side of just like all of it in general. For sure, you know, cuz it was up to my mom, I would live with her forever. You know that's how my mom is. My mom is a professional mother and she, if it was up to her, her, all of her kids, would still live under her roof and be with her and take care. She'd be with all them, you know so that's really sweet.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful. Okay, so your time is spent. It sounds like producing your own parties, putting all these people together so that you can do what you want to do, or Do also like the event planning stuff, because I assumed you were just working on the comedy, going around to existing events, existing opportunities and showing up and delivering your act, but there's a whole other piece of it that you're now involved in. Is that because you like to do that or is that just the stage you're at in getting your name out there?
Speaker 1:It was almost built out a necessity, so I do like it as much. I don't know, it's weird. Here's the thing. So it's like anything. I'm really trying to step away from it more and I'm always like man. It would be so nice if someone produced you, but at the same time, I think I have enough foresight to see that, like you're gonna miss it. Like there's gonna be a time where it's like man. Remember when you used to drag the speakers in here and you would set the thing up and do all of that Like you'll. You'll always romanticize the past, you know, and be like these were so cool. So I'm really trying to enjoy the event production side of it while I'm doing it, because it is already a lot less hands-on than it was when I first started. But yeah, it was almost done out of necessity.
Speaker 1:Like there's not a lot of people Producing comedy in Canada. So I've met how it started. I've met way too many very, very funny comedians that were doing this and I don't want to say they're not getting anywhere, but it's just like you see where they're at after doing this for 10, 15, 20 years and you're like you're still doing like a pubs and bars for a hundred people Like, how have you not you know? And they're like, well, no one, like no one produces theater events for Canadian comics Other than they have like just for laughs is one of them. And they pick about three or four people a year to do a Tour once a year that they send out, other than that they bring in American acts and do like one-off shows, but there's really no event producers for Canada. And then there's the one other really big tours like the Snowden comedy tour. That's a really big one, but that's just like a closed group of friends that just started doing this 15 or they're like 18 years ago now Doing it. They just keep doing it. So like you're not gonna get on that show. So then you're like, if you want to do something, there's Comedy clubs, but they're very few and far between. Now there's not very many of them left. And so it was like, yeah, if you want to work, you better.
Speaker 1:I just started booking my own stuff and Going that way and it started out with pubs and bars. Like that's all I used to do. I would phone like bars that I saw, I would go on Google and I would type in the name of the city and then go live Entertainment or live music, and then I would find the bot like the pubs and bars that would have musicians in, and then I would just Cold call them and try and book me. I'd be like hey, like, do you want to book a show? And what I found this is actually how the event production company started, because what I phoned is me trying to book me people would be like no, we're not booking, like we're not booking this hippie who lives in a van who wants to come and tell jokes, like I'm not doing that.
Speaker 1:So that's what I found is, if I phoned them as a production company, so it like I created a vlog. It was called like an experiment called life, and that was like my little thing is life's an experiment. The solution we're looking for is our happiness, and I was going around vlogging the whole thing. You can actually watch it all on YouTube. You can watch from the moment I quit my job up until now. But then what I did is I found if I was a production company, so I called it ECL productions, which is like experiment called life productions, and I just phoned and be like hi, it's Alex with ECL productions were a event production company based out of Vancouver. We're looking at producing a stand-up comedy event in your town. Would your venue be interested in hosting us? And then they're all like, whoa, yeah, like this company out of Vancouver wants to, and then I would just conveniently book myself and a friend.
Speaker 1:Then, once we started doing that, I started getting booked way more.
Speaker 1:And then I started just kind of like well, how do you scale it up? Like it just became like let's not try to a pub or a bar. And the thing was this I think you trick yourself Because you wouldn't sell out a pub. Say like you went to do a pub and you couldn't get 50 people in there and you only sold like 45 tickets. You're like I could never do a theater because I can't even fill up a pub. But here's the thing if you're doing a bigger show, like more people just want to come because it's a bigger show, like you know, more people will be excited to go to a theater to watch a show. Then to go to some pub that they're like I'm not going to the pub to listen to some. I don't know amateur, you know comics, but if it's the same comics putting a theater, they're like wow, these guys must be good because they're in this fancy venue. So I just kind of believed in that and then I just started booking theaters and it started growing. Now that's all I do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of how they give you advice to set your prices in a way where you just Automatically become more valuable when you just say you're more valuable, whereas when you low ball, which you typically think as an entrepreneur if I make my price point really accessible, you know I just want to get some yeses in the door, I want to get some reps in, I don't want to be any barriers to someone hiring me you end up really putting yourself in a category that just could immediately dismiss you because somebody would assume amateur hour, like you said, based on price, for you it's based on the venue sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, that's honestly. Well, that was the thing that I found in general. Just even with booking pubs and bars, the most important thing was the venue. Like if you pick a popular pub, people are like it.
Speaker 1:The shows would always sell out with like a little effort and it had nothing to do with you it was the fact that they're like oh, people like that pub and if that pubs put an event on, they're gonna go. But if you pick the pub in town that is like you know they own it. Maybe the owner's a jerk and doesn't get along with anyone and no one likes that person. Then it's like bring the best show ever there and people are like I'm not gonna support that place. I got a jerk, you know. So I found the venue selection seems to be one of the most important thing.
Speaker 2:So you just put on a show with 5,000 seats? Did you sell close to that? No 2,000 that's amazing Wow.
Speaker 1:We actually end up selling out only because we changed the event configuration. Okay, because it's an arena, you can set the stage so many different places, fill so many seats on the floor. Our goal actually was to sell 3,000. We were set up to do like a 3,000, like a they call it like a quarter bowl, so the end of the arena we were only had sold about a thousand when we were about a month out. So we're like they're like hey, we have this other side stage set up, we can go to that's way more friendly for this size of an event. And then I was like, yeah, let's do that. And then we actually ended up selling that out and they're like hey, we, we need to add more seats, do you want to add more? So then we started opening more sections and going wider. Yeah, it was very, very, it's the coolest thing ever. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I bet just such a rush. And then so you do this show and how does the act go? Were you trying new material or for a big event like that? Are you like no tried and true stuff, big audience? I'm gonna share what works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, always, always when it's like a really big show, you're pretty much always doing tried and true stuff. This is fairly new material for me that I did. It's not like it was the first time doing it, but it is new in the sense of I just filmed my first standup comedy special here in Prince George back in April. So then to have all these people come back out and see you again, you're like this has to be new so I can't just give them the same stuff that I just showed them. But this show is a lineup show that I do, so it's part of it's called the Hunger for Laughs Tour, so it's actually like a full variety act. So we have comedians, we have a magician and we have a circus act.
Speaker 2:Wow, it's a whole experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but then I did yeah, 20 plus minutes of stuff that no one in Prince George has seen before.
Speaker 2:Nice. Do you ever get bored doing the same jokes over? I always wondered about Taylor Swift big Taylor Swift fan Ares Tour. If you don't know about it, I think you're lying, because she's going literally everywhere every night performing the exact same songs and I wonder how could she be that into it every single time? What's the truth?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I find, like with comedy it depends like so much as the crowd. Like if the crowd is really into it, like that really you can do old stuff and it will give you still a good, like good little bit of fire, because you're like you know, like when they're laughing and you know you're like this is they're laughing already. Now, just wait till I get to the next part, they're going to be like keeled over, and so that's really fun. But it is a little bit soul sucking if you're doing the same thing all the time.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like I think it'd be no different than having a nine to five job where you go in and do the same thing every day. If you're just going to get like your hour of material and just do that over and over, like it's like you're not taking any risks, you're not doing anything, you know. So the most, the funnest part of standup comedy is trying new stuff, when you're like I have an idea I think this is going to be funny, but I don't know until I get on stage and try it. Yeah, doing the old stuff over and over gets pretty pretty blah, but it depends Like you try and always add new tags and things like that. So like you're like ooh, I think I could add this onto the end of that joke and it would make it a little bit better, or if I change these words around and that. So I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes sense to me. Is there any new material you're working on right now that you could tease Any topics, any themes that you're playing around with?
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot. So that's why I'm most excited right now to be done. So that Hunger for Laughs tour is the biggest tour that we do. It's my company's flagship event. We did eight dates this year, anywhere from exactly. You know, it's like a 500 seats was our smallest venue, up to a couple thousand was the biggest and, like in Vancouver, we did the Vogue theater. They're pretty large scale events and then we're flying people in from all over the world to do them. So it's a lot of producer work.
Speaker 1:So very little comedy side, mostly event production, and so I find that is where I get kind of drained by the end of it, cause I'm like I've focused so much on the business side that it's not as fun as, like, the creative side. But now that's done and now I have the next few months to just do. I've got like four months now where I pretty much just focus on comedy, cause actually I tour. I go to Australia in the new year. I do that for a few months, no new ones.
Speaker 1:I'm getting now to a point in my comedy career where I get to write more about stuff that I actually want to write about.
Speaker 1:Okay, like when you first start, and I think it's in any pursuit like any artistic pursuit anyway like you're just trying to learn how to do your craft.
Speaker 1:So when I'm learning comedy, I'm just trying to learn how to write a joke. It doesn't matter what it's about, you're just trying to write like setup, punchline, and it has to do like can do nothing with my life or anything. But as you get better, then you get to start using your like, your skill, which is like writing jokes, and then you get to write it about your life, which is then where, like, the art piece comes in right, cause it's like I get to take my life and then use my art form comedy and dispense it to you, and then we all get to have a good time. So now I'm writing a lot more about family. Family is a lot of big ones I'm writing about, which is really cool. I'm going to tell some fun stories about like my, my brother and my sister, which is really exciting. And then I'm also writing about what it's like getting older you know, being in your mid 30s now doing that, oh God, are we old yeah we're on the back now.
Speaker 1:We're on the back now. I don't know at all. So then I get to do a bit of that, like some of the other stuff I was doing. That was I liked was what it was like to live in an RV with a dog, you know. So it's doing that stuff. But yeah, what do you want? Do you want me to write to tell you about a joke I'm working on?
Speaker 2:Or is that something? Do people ever just go up to you and be like, oh, you're a comedian, like tell me a joke All the?
Speaker 1:time. Yeah, we've always found a joke. That's the number one thing they ask for, and then usually I'll just give them a street joke. That's not even mine. You'll just say well, why did the bicycle fall over? And you'll say because it was too tired. So then you'll tell them a joke like that.
Speaker 2:And then they don't want to follow up.
Speaker 1:No, and then they're like okay, man, we get it, and then they're out of there. But you can do like you know a joke I'm working on now that can kind of show you joke structures. Like my brother, he bare mazed himself in a car wash when he was four years old. So my dad took him to the car wash and like left them in the truck. And then my dad went out to like go wash the truck right, and left my brother in there. And then my brother, four years old, curious little kid. So he like opened the glove box and he found a can of bear maize. So that he took the lid off and like unwrapped it, topop it, safety off everything, and from like four year olds, arm length away, he darted himself directly in the face with this bear maize. So he's screaming, he's freaking out, right. Actually, look, I got a picture of my little brother right here. That's my whole family, that's my little brother right there. The kid had bear mazed himself, see, he used to have eyebrows, but and then what happened? So then he's like freaking out and he's crying, right, but my dad can't hear anything because my dad's in the truck trying to like wash the truck or pressure wash the truck so he can't hear anything. But the people in line behind they can hear my brother screaming, right, so they start flagging my dad down. So then my dad, like goes over, opens the door to the truck. He immediately realizes what has happened now, what my dad does next. So he grabs my brother with one hand and pulls him out of the truck and with the other he just starts pressure washing them. And only know the best part about this story People in line behind them.
Speaker 1:They know nothing of the bear mace, like. So as far as their concerns they just went hey man, your kids crying. My dad with my kid cover. You want something to cry about? I'm in the face. They start yelling at my dad, right. So now they're like freaking out, cuz they don't know what those are. They're yelling my dad and the thing is my dad, he doesn't know that. They don't know about the bear mace, right, so then they're screaming. They're like he's gonna die. My dad's like I know. Oh, now they think this guy's trying to kill his kid. That is just a classic miscommunication. But those jokes are so fun to write cuz you get to like keep stepping down and adding tags. So it's like what's a tag?
Speaker 1:a tag is anytime. It's like a, like an add-on, another laugh on the end of the joke, mm-hmm, you know. Cuz the joke starts with, it's like did the funny? Just like might did the fact they're like my dad Spray in the kid with a pressure washer in the face, yeah. And then the tag on it is like you're like that's just a funny visual to picture this guy pressure washing his kid. Yeah, I got it. As you say.
Speaker 1:The people in line behind like they don't know about the bear mace, right, they know nothing of it. So then it's so funny because they think this guy just was was punishing his kid because his kid was crying. And Then those people start yelling at the guy. So then you get to do another tag by being like my dad doesn't know that, they don't know there's bear mace. So then they're screaming about the like yeah, like he's gonna die and my dad's like I know. And then they think he's this guy's just straight up trying to kill his kid. Yeah, because so tags, or anytime. You can get like an extra laugh on the initial punch line.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, I've never had a comedian on the show before which I said to you and I think one thing that Anybody is curious or interested in about someone who's a comedian is when did you realize you were funny? And like, how did you realize you were funny enough? I think you gotta go on, but what are? Some early memories that come to mind.
Speaker 1:Oh, so the earliest I can think of stand-up comedy would have been like probably around 12 years old or something I would say I've always loved stand-up, like the art form of stand-up. I've always been very drawn to it. It was like when we would get home from school, channel 34 was a comedy network and they would have just for laughs on and you would watch the stand-up comedy and I always loved it. Like that was. My favorite thing to watch was stand-up comedians. And the earliest memory I have was like regurgitating Russell Peters to my grandma, that like someone's gonna get a hurt, real bad, like doing that whole thing. And I remember my grandma being like wow, like you're really good at that, you should do that for a living. You know you should do do not for a living, but you should do that, you should do this comedy. And I was like grandma like you know, it's easy to tell other people's jokes like I could never write my own, you know, and I honestly left it at that forever. Like I just I remember there was an assignment in grade eight. There was just like an introspection quiz and you had to write like what makes you happy, what makes you sad? You know it's like what do you think is funny and for what do you think is funny? I wrote on a stage in Montreal Like that was always like funny to me was always stand-up comedy was just the funniest thing.
Speaker 1:I never even considered doing it until I later like 26 years old is when I first time I did it, and that was because I had a podcast. I did a podcast just like this, and we had a podcast went up interviewing a comedian out of New York and I told him that I love stand-up comedy. I've always wanted to try it, but I'm from, like Prince George, a small town, and I never get to. Uh, there's like nowhere to do it. And then someone wrote into the show and said there's actually this open mic at this little place called Alfredo's pub. You should come and try it out. So I put together five minutes of material and I went and I performed and it was. It went good. It went as good as it possibly could for the first time. So I really enjoyed it. And then once a month we had a place called Nancy O's. It would fly in a pro comic from Vancouver to come up here and do an hour and us locals would get to open for them. So we'd get to do five to ten minutes and open for these guys and ladies.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, I just I started liking it but I still never, I never really was that drawn to it. And I think it's because, like it's so hard at the beginning you suck, like you just suck for so long it's not that fun. Because you're going up there and it's not like you're just like crushing and everyone's loving it. You're like, oh, this is so fun. You're going up there and you're like, okay, I did it, like I did the thing, I'm okay. It's just kind of relief. Like some people laugh, you feel all right.
Speaker 1:But I don't know, it was probably honestly even like I really jumped into it way over my head, like I just I was very depressed in my old life, I was very unhappy with my old job and I wanted to do something different. And that's where that an experiment called life, the vlog came in, because the original plan wasn't even comedy. The original plan was sell everything, buy a camper van, and I was just going to drive to Central America with my dog and we were going to rent. I was going to rent out surfboards on the beach or something and live off of the money I had from selling my house. And that was the plan.
Speaker 1:And then comedy I started going on the road a little bit and I started making a little bit of money and I started looking at it and I was like dude, I could easily see like the business side of comedy when you're like dude, if you sell 50 tickets for 20 dollars, I'm like that's a thousand dollars. I'm like if you can find a way to do this, like you know, friday, saturday, sunday, like you know, you can make 10 grand a month type of thing. Then obviously have expenses and that. But I'm like you can start, like you can make real income. It was the one thing that was kind of like a hobby that I like to do, that I could easily see a way to monetize and turn into a dollar value. So then the goal became well, let's not drive to Central America, let's drive around doing these comedy shows. And then I always thought, even if I can't get funny enough to do this, I could see the business side of it and I could produce shows if I had to.
Speaker 1:But then what happened over the pandemic? Basically, you couldn't, I couldn't do any show, you couldn't produce anything, couldn't do anything. So I spent all my time learning how to write jokes. I bought every joke writing book. I wrote every day. I just started really looking up humor, joke structure and humor theories. Why do humans even laugh? Like what is laughter for? So I started doing all that, started writing jokes, and then I started getting a lot of views online and then it just snowballed.
Speaker 1:And then I got to performing and then once I figured out really how to perform and do it, then it just kind of took off and I started really realizing I'm like you can do this, like you don't even need to hire other acts to perform with you, like you can do it yourself. And then, I don't know, it just kind of all grew. And now you're here and you're yeah, feel like you're, you got to figure it out. Like I think you got it. It's still a lot of work. And that's the best part of it is, there's always like every time, I think you're like, wow, you got it all sorted. You're like you get better and better and there's so many more levels to get to.
Speaker 2:What do you think drives you enough to keep going, and where do you? What do you attribute that resilience to? Because, like you said at the beginning, your words, not mine, you sucked. You'd go out there in front of crowds and maybe they laughed at a joke or two. But we've all been to a comedy show where it's cringe, where you're feeling kind of bad for the person. You go to a Saturday showcase. There's five comedians the first couple of ones it's a bit hard to watch. Thank goodness the host coming in between, who's a bit better and then just gets better and better. If you're early on in that lineup it can be awkward. Sounds like you had that experience. Yeah, how did you get through that?
Speaker 1:Well, there's certain ones. So first thing is you have you have some shows that go good, Like I was very lucky. I remember the first really bad bombing I ever had was in Vancouver. I was going to school and I did a little pro-am thing like a showcase show like you're talking about, at the comedy mix. I was on barart and it went so bad it was five minutes of cricket, it's like not even a chuckle, and I remember thinking if that was my first show I would never have done comedy again. You'd be like this isn't for me. I don't understand it. That was the worst experience ever. But luckily at that point I had had success, like had some shows go pretty good, and I think the thing is the measuring stick always moves right.
Speaker 1:I can say I suck now looking back Back, then I probably didn't think I sucked right.
Speaker 1:That's probably like I'm pretty good at this. I'm just not that good but I'm pretty good because it was before. If you got to laugh in the five minutes, you're like I did the thing, like I said the words, and they laugh as where. Now, like I'm trying to get a laugh like every 15 seconds, you know Like it should be like, like you're just that steady rhythm. Your goal stick changes. So it's probably like a defense mechanism in your brain to keep you a little bit delusional, to be like OK, you're doing OK and you're doing fine, but then your expectations change and now you expect more. Yeah, so I think that's probably what helps keep you going is that you've had some decent success at it, you know.
Speaker 2:What would you say to somebody who you do think has what it takes but their first show completely bombs and they don't have the experience of it going well yet?
Speaker 1:Just do it again, just do it again and yeah just keep trying.
Speaker 1:for sure I'm a big fan of like talent. I don't know, I guess maybe not talent, but it's it's time and effort. Create your trajectory, your skill set where you're at. I don't really believe in this, like I guess another. I don't believe in it because there is. I think we all have different starting points, but it's all created by time and effort and you could easily catch someone who's doing way better than you by just more work. So here's actually a book. It was actually a Rissa Kelly and all the people got me from the Hunger for Laughs Tour, all the other artists they got me. This is my book for my next notebook, and in here they wrote one of my favorite quotes on the front page for me and it's from Macklemore. But the quote says the grades weren't great because at birth they could paint. The grades were great because they paint a lot and that is something I really believe.
Speaker 1:Like I think I'm like on the board of like anyone can do anything you know. Like I think you can do whatever you want, man. Like I think we all get to choose who we are in this world and you could do whatever you want. It's just whether or not you're willing to put in the time and effort to get there, because it is a lot of. It's just a lot of work and there's like a lot of I don't know. You just have to question, like you're asking, how do you keep the resilience, like to keep going? And that is just the thing in, whether it's comedy or life or anything Like when you're doing anything.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you and your entrepreneurial pursuit is like, how do you keep lying to yourself and saying it's going to work? You're going to know, like, especially at the beginning, when those kinds are not going so well and your things aren't going the way you want, and it's like are you going to be able to make your bills, are you going to be able to get these things? And I think you just have to have some sort of belief or, like you know that everything's going to work out.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:Mm. Hmm, totally. And on that note about the bills, you said you were comfortable sharing some financials. So, thinking back about your last job, I know it was 2019. That was a big turning point for you. You quit the job you mentioned. You're depressed. Your parents at this time don't think this is a real career, but you're going to do it anyway. What does now look like? Because full circle your mom's working for you? Have you been able to replace that previous income? Do they think it's a legitimate career?
Speaker 1:Yeah, every, everyone everywhere believes. Now it's really really cool man. And it is like, financially, I would say like I'm doing as well as, if not better than, I was working at the mill before, and no one's voting it at all anymore. And that's just very recent. That is like within the last six months. I would say that it really changed Because a lot of it was like, you know, 2019, may of 2019, I did it that whole summer.
Speaker 1:I was just driving around in the RV, wasn't really doing it, like I was just having fun, like I'd worked for 12 years, had a bunch of money from selling my house. I didn't have the same business mindset because I wasn't too worried about it. It was just kind of out there performing, figuring it out. And then I went to Australia and then COVID happened and then when I was back here, that was very hard times because it was like you couldn't do anything, like I was just like the thing that I quit my job to do I can't do now, which was weird. So those were very hard times. And then they kept opening up and then shutting back down. I don't know if you remember that. So that was very, very hard in event production because, like to plan an event like minimum, like foot to the floor, going like one month, like you need a month to like launch this thing and then try to get ticket sales and try to get it all going, and then you would launch it and then three weeks later they'd be like actually we're shutting back down, and so then you'd have to cancel the event. You'd have to refund everyone their money, all the money I spent on marketing and everything without the door gone, like Facebook isn't going to give me my money back for Facebook ads that I purchased, you know. And so then they did that like twice and you're just losing. You're like I'm going to have to go get a job, like I don't know what I'm going to do because this isn't working.
Speaker 1:And then, just as soon as it opened back up, just stuck to the program, like keep producing events, keep going. And then that's actually how I got into it with. So the conference we met at, the Leap Conference, that's Community Futures and that's who funded my career, that's who got me started. So because I had this, exactly this tour that we just did this hunger for laughs tour, like doing that arena, and that that I just had this idea. I'm like I just need to scale this up, like I need to like really like we're going a lot bigger, doing way more. But then you look and you need so much work in capital and I had none, like I had spent all my money I had through COVID and just the touring, like not knowing what you're doing at the beginning. I have no one showing you how to be a comedian, so you don't know what to do and you're like all the comedians I work with, none of them even do this right.
Speaker 1:So they're like I don't know what to do. So you're just putting on events and losing money and then figuring out okay, well, you can't spend $1,000 marketing event that only is going to sell $1,500 in tickets. Dude, like what do you do it? So you're just learning to lower expenses and figuring out actual costs. One good thing my friend told me who's a business dude. He says first thing you have to do is every job gets a job number and he goes you record every expense for that job goes under that job number and he goes I'll tell you whatever you think is costing you. I guarantee it's costing double right now. And I was like no way. And I started doing that and I was like whoa dude? I was like I thought this show that I spent $400 to put on, I'm like it was costing me $900. Like it's like you're just losing money and coming out of there.
Speaker 1:I then went to Community Futures and I was like hey, like I've got this idea. So they started by giving me like a micro loan. So they gave me $25,000. After doing I had to do sales forecasts and I had to do like a three year business plan and sales forecasts and all this stuff with them. So they gave me a micro loan of 25 grand that was secured against my RV, my van, and then I use that to launch this tour.
Speaker 1:And then within a month I had it all spent by, after paying venue deposits and marketing, and I had to go back to them and be like, look, I've got no money left and I need money to produce the show now, like I've got it all going and then I could show them sales forecasts. So I was like, look, we've already sold a bunch of money and tickets, but I won't get that money until this event is done, but I need more money to be able to get the people in. So then they gave me another $35,000 loan. Then I used that to produce the tour and then I lost $60,000 on the first tour. So I lost all their money that I had, and then I had no money and nothing. So then you're like, oh great, so now I have a business loan and no money and lost everything. And then I just had to keep plugging along and doing my solo shows. And then this year again we did it and then I had to borrow another $25,000 again.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh okay.
Speaker 1:I borrowed that again. Then I produced the tour this year and this year all of our numbers like last year, on average we got like 200 to 300 people out at a show and this year we averaged like 700 to 900 people a show.
Speaker 2:What do you attribute the difference to?
Speaker 1:I think brand awareness, I think, is what it is. I think it's just, you know, like I think the shows were great last year. Everyone loved them. So I think it's just coming back another year, coming to the same place. It's the same branding. People are like oh, that show was here last year. I heard good things, we should go this year.
Speaker 1:So I think that's a very big part of it. I've learned how to do marketing a lot better. So it's just learning how to do Facebook and Google ads a lot better. I've learned that my own profile like I do a lot more yeah, just myself as an artist has grown so I have a bigger following there. That was kind of my business plan from day one. It's like if you go to a city, you notice you'll get like 20 people out your first time. Then you go back and then it's like 50 people came out, then it's like 100 people came out, and if you just keep going back to the cities as long as you're working as an artist like growing and not doing the same material all the time people will keep coming out to support you and then it's just grown and grown.
Speaker 2:Love it. Wow, what a journey. Okay, I know we're over time. I want to sneak in one last question and I think it's a good way to wrap. You said that what keeps you going is the goalpost kind of keeps moving Like you hit a milestone, you hit a level of success, but then your expectations increase. What are you dreaming up for the new year? What is the next level of Alex look like.
Speaker 1:Oh, so it depends what metric we're trying to measure. I write down goals every month, so I don't know if you'll see on my Instagram I do like. Every month, I write down a list of goals and I write down which ones I failed, why I do what I do. Next year, though, I really want to like my goal. I want to do a million dollars in ticket sales next year.
Speaker 2:Okay, fuck yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's a big goal and that's something I'll push towards for the next year. I'm trying to sell out some more big. I don't know. I honestly don't know. I'd have to sit down and really think about what they all are. I have some stuff planned that I'm very excited about.
Speaker 1:So Australia I'm branching out and doing what I do here but I'm doing it there. So I have rented a couple of big theaters in Australia, like 500 seat theaters, just for myself to do a show. So I've always gone there. I go there every year, every January to April. But I do festivals. They have like the fringe festivals but now I want to try and just do these theaters on my solo show and same with myself. I've done a few in the past, but I want to start doing like the size of venues that I'm doing with the Hunger for Laughs Tour. I want to do those just me, like, not with the group of the team, like just under my own name. Just come and see, alex. I actually have the biggest venue booked.
Speaker 1:Yet that I've done is in Fredericton and it's on January 20th. I'm there and it's like 750 seats and that was booked on accident. It was supposed to be. We thought it. I thought it was like 200 to 250 seats. And I've got a new booking agent now and I just told her hey, book this place. My friend says it's great Thought. It was like 200 seats. And then she booked it and it turns out it's 700. And we're like well, I guess we got to try and sell it now and it is going very, very well. Like I think we're going to sell it out. I agree with you, like we've sold a couple hundred tickets already and it's two months away.
Speaker 1:It always just reminds me to like just bet on yourself, man. Like you're always, cause even that's even what the hunger for laughs kind of thing is is like it's a way to be like you put a bunch of other acts on there and you're like, oh, I couldn't do it, but if I have these other people there. But then you're like well, I can't, you just do it, you don't. You don't think you're funny enough, you don't think people pay to come see you alone. Like you know what I mean and what I've learned is, every time that I've bet on myself, it's worked and it like you.
Speaker 1:Just it's very hard to, I don't know. It just seems to be hard to believe in ourselves, cause we have all our know, all of our own insecurities and our own doubts and stuff, and but so next year a million dollars in ticket sales, I think. And then I also want to get a place. I think I'm ready to upgrade the RV and I want to get like a home base, but it's hard to justify cause I'm never there. You literally I'm in a different city like every three to four days, so it's very hard to be like. But if you're making a bunch of money, then you can get a place. It doesn't really matter, you know.
Speaker 2:There's solutions for that. Airbnb trusted house sitter. We can talk about that another time. You got this. Thank you so much, alex. A million dollars in ticket sales leveling up home base in Prince George or no?
Speaker 1:no, I mean Vancouver.
Speaker 2:Vancouver cool, All right. Well, if you're ever in Squamish, I don't know if we have a 5,000 person venue, do we?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a hockey rink. We could get a mobile song Rink rink.
Speaker 2:Let's make it happen. I'll help you sell some tickets If you ever come here. I would absolutely love that. Thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. Bye, bye, and if you're getting value from this podcast, it would mean so much to me If you could leave me a short review. In Apple Podcast, you can write something. In Spotify, you can just click the five stars and hit subscribe or follow. I wanna do these solo episodes. I will do these solo episodes every two weeks and by following along, that's the best way to make sure you never miss one. So thank you so much. Until next time, enjoy your freedom.