Top Picks for #BrightonFringe #BrightonFestival and other hashtags

It’s May 1st in sunny Brighton and I’ve drawn up my spreadsheet for things I’d most like to see at the Brighton Fringe and beyond. At the moment there are 80 shows, but cutting out the doubling up and shows that I just can’t fit in it leaves me with a schedule for about 50. At the Leicester Comedy Festival earlier this year I saw 22 in a week, 7 in one day, so it’s doable – hurray!

(A word of warning: when I came back from Leicester I had “flu” for 10 days.)

If you’d rather just have some guidance to “must-sees”, here’s my humble opinion and sorry to those I’ve left out – I’m a philistine. In no particular order:

Pat Cahill: Panjandrum, 13 May, 21.00 Komedia, £8.
A nominee for Best Show at Leicester 2016. A Beatles effect on the female judging panel. Prepare to wet yourself laughing or throw your knickers – either way you’re in for a good time.

Jo Neary Does Animals and Men, 10-12 May, 22.00 Hobgoblin, FREE.
Another nominee for Best Show in Leicester 2016 for a different show, Faceful of Issues, which was a simply hilarious delight which also featured Centre Partin’ Martin. I’ve loved Jo Neary for a very long time, but I’d only seen her do short sets. When given an hour she transports you Willy Wonkalike to a world of imagination and you wonder what on Earth you been doing all these years. I felt things – emotion and green fabric.

David James: Precisely, 28 May and 4 June, 17.30 Komedia Studio, £10.
Thigh-slappingly good. A traditional anecdotal stand-up, he’s been compared to Jack Dee and Stewart Lee but he reminds me of Dave Allen.

David James appears at the Brighton Fringe for two nights only with his new show, Precisely. Photo: Ed Moore

Sarah Kendall plus support, 12 May, 20.00 Komedia, £10.
5 stars in Edinburgh, a Mick Perrin act, say no more.

Mat Ewins and John Kearns: 12 May, 21.00, Republic, £10.
It’s John Kearns innit?

The Alasdair Beckett-King Mysteries 27-28 May, 23.30, Caroline of Brunswick, FREE unticketed.
NATYS award-winner. Brilliant, original and does a fabulous impression of John the Baptist. He was on at Charity Chuckle with previous NATYS award-winner Joe Wilkinson. I asked if the award had done anything for their careers. “No, nothing.” Get on board, comedians, it’s a Crazy Mouse to hell!

Sara Pascoe: Animal, 14 May, 19.30, Corn Exchange, £13. Part of the #BrightonFestival
Currently sold out, but you can always buy the book. Click here for Waterstones.

Brighton Goes Gospel, #FeelGoodWithBGG, 21 May, 15.00 and 19.30, Roedean Theatre, £12.
Search for Gospel on the online ticket shop or pick up tickets from the Dome Box Office.
Singing Bob Marley, The Beatles and special arrangements by choir director Daniel Thomas, if you love The Blues Brothers you’ll love this. (Yes, I’m in it.)

Other recommendations from the Brighton Fringe: Tina C, Cassette Boy, Suzy Bennett, Athena Kugblenu, Icons (le Gateau Chocolate), Sean McLoughlin, Abandoman, John Hastings, Jessica Fostekew, Joz Norris and Casual Violence – among so many others – and there’s also a rumour that Leicester Best Debut winners Dude Looks Like a Lady are performing at The Warren on 1st June, but hey, you’ve only so much you can do and I know you’ve also got to see King Lear and Ghostbusters.

And this isn’t even including our Brighton locals Aidan Goatley, Fraser Geesin, Rob Dumbrell, Joe Foster, Rich Perry, Michael Fabbri, Zoe Lyons (Bent Double) and the Jill Edwards New Act Night – all ace.

I hope this helps. If not, just nip to Wahaca and have a guacumole with pork scratchings. That’ll sort you out. A margarita and guac if you’re veggie. It’s also the Brighton Fringe hub, so if someone is picking up flyers and makes the staff laugh – follow them.

Happy Bank Holiday! See you soon, maybe at Romesh Ranganathan on the 2nd May and Gordillo in June at the Caroline of Brunswick – there’s some amazing #Edfringe Previews coming up too. Have fun!

Kerry xx

 

Registration for Brighton Fringe is now open!

This year’s Brighton Fringe runs from the 1-31 May 2015 and registration is now open. Early Bird rates finish on 15th December 2014 so it’s time to arrange your venue, dates, time, show title, ticket price and short blurb.

Registration fees: http://www.brightonfringe.org/participants/registration-fees

Register: http://registration.brightonfringe.org

The Brighton Fringe Participants Services can offer great advice when starting out – email them here: participantservices@brightonfringe.org

“What Kerry Herbert doesn’t know about how to turn ticket sales round and sell out local comedy clubs just isn’t worth knowing.”  Jill Edwards, Promoter and Comedy Coach

About Kerry Herbert at Stand-Up Marketing: I am an award-winning Comedy Promoter, with over 15 years’ promotion experience and a long-running monthly comedy night, Charity Chuckle at the Brighton Komedia.  Over the years I’ve booked many top comedians, including Stewart Lee, Al Murray, Sara Pascoe, Lucy Porter, Joe Wilkinson and Hannibal Buress, as well as newer up-and-coming comics such as Nick Helm, Josh Widdicombe and Luisa Omielan. Charity Chuckle is the most successful comedy fundraiser in Sussex. It is often sold out.

Brighton-based, with expert knowledge of the Fringe, Stand-Up Marketing fills a unique gap:

• the only Independent Comedy Marketing and PR with experience of performing and promoting.
• the only Marketing and PR business to deal exclusively with comedy and performance.
• clients may be new or mid-level club performers, without agents or tour promoters – not just the famous or hotly tipped.
• strategy for one-off marketing projects or a whole run, such as website content and navigation, press releases, posters and flyer design and print management, social media campaigns for Brighton through to Edinburgh.
• involved with the comedy circuit since 2007, and in Marketing Business for the last 20 years, with the links, networks and expertise to make these advantages YOUR advantages.
• native to Brighton and Sussex with the local links you’ll need, including the most up-to-date and influential press contacts.
• links to the broader Scottish and national press.
• experience of running global big business accounts – because you never know where your Fringe show might take you!

For a professional service, please contact me.

WINNER! Venus Awards Best Home Based Business in Brighton & Sussex – Stand-Up Marketing and Charity Chuckle

 

 

 

On Friday 17th October 2014 I won the Venus Award for Best Home Based Business in Brighton & Sussex for Stand-Up Marketing and Charity Chuckle. Thank you to everyone who voted and to the judges for this recognition. I’m delighted!

 

“Search Engine Origami”

I went to a business conference in Brighton yesterday. There were people of all ages, some with blue hair, some with purple, one with blonde hair that faded from pale blue to purple. Gorgeous! A bearded man stood up after a lecture in the Dome Corn Exchange, and when his trousers slipped down to reveal his entire be-panted bottom, he paused for a moment, considered, and left the trousers down. We were under strict instructions from the organisers to celebrate the geek, both within and without, so I managed to restrain myself from reaching over and pulling them up for him. I’m a geek and a mother; that was hard!

Yes, it was Brighton, but what could this wonderful business world be that attracted such luminous butterflies and their pants?

SEO. Heard of it? Many of the people outside of the digital bubble haven’t. As I was lunching in the Chilli Pickle (fabulous, thank you – I recommend the ribs with a vegetable curry, roti and chapatti on the side and a beautifully crisp glass of house white. You’re welcome!) a lady next to me asked what my lanyard was. She’d seen a lot of them about. I said SEO – the internet, web content, Google. She looked blank. “Search Engine Origami!” I said. She grinned. “Well I’ve heard of the origami.”

Search Engine Optimization is basically making the text, pictures and layout of your website work so that you come up in Google searches. Here’s the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

If it sounds complicated, that’s because it kind of is. It talks about VISIBILITY. In comedy terms, that’s your public profile:

• Have people heard about you?
• Can they find out about you? Easily?
• Is what they hear good?
• Can they see a picture of you?
• Perhaps a video?
• Do they know where you’re playing next, and how to get there?
• Why would they WANT to come and see you?

And if that sounds obvious, that’s also because it kind of is. And that’s where I come in:  complicated and obvious – ta daaa!

Having helped with the London Sketch Festival, I’m now working on shows in the Brighton Fringe and the Edinburgh Festival. It’s advertising and poster time at the moment. Here’s an ad I’m doing for a Charity Chuckle show with Just the Tonic.

YOU are your business. Business professionals employ experts: if you want comedy to be your business, it makes sense to employ Stand-Up Marketing to do the tedious and the time-consuming. That way, you can spend more of your time making the show as brilliant as brilliant can be.

What can Stand-Up Marketing do for you?
As a client, the plan is to create a 360˚marketing strategy that will get results, with agreed targets and a budget. From the mundane to the mad, we’ve done it all: filled in endless online listings forms, revised websites to get them up the rankings, made feedback notes on shows, arranged publicity stunts and flashmobs, got comedians into Film Festivals, pulled in radio interviews and bloggers, turned ticket sales around with online ads, designed great flyers that people DIDN’T stick straight in the bin, created press releases with results, garnering great quotes that could be used again and again, such as with Charmian Hughes: “She could be Josie Long’s mum” – Chortle.

Stand-Up Marketing can also manage and produce professional Comedy Events.

And if a comedian drops out, Kerry’s got a mean 5 minutes.

Check the Testimonials in WHY STAND-UP MARKETING?

Contact

http://www.standupmarketing.co.uk

Why Stand-Up Marketing?

You know when someone says they saw a brilliant show, but there was hardly anyone there? It means that either people didn’t know about the show, hadn’t heard of the act or it hadn’t been effectively marketed. Stand Up Marketing provides the press and marketing expertise to get the word out and turn ticket sales around.

 Testimonials

“What Kerry Herbert doesn’t know about how to turn ticket sales round and sell out local comedy clubs just isn’t worth knowing.” Jill Edwards, Promoter and Comedy Coach

“Kerry has become an invaluable asset to our PR from the very start. Honest, insightful and versatile, she found a way to help us that suited us and was fast in doing so. A consummate professional, she is easy to work with, communicative and considerate, helping us to achieve what we both needed and wanted.” Adam Dahrouge, London Sketch Festival
Top Qualities: Personable, High Integrity, Creative

“Kerry has been a fabulous PR person for me on my show. Not only has she done her job well by getting me connected to the right publications, but has been a true support and help by reminding me when I need to do something myself to raise my profile at the best times to do it, and by being totally on my side.  A very personalised service. I thoroughly recommend her.” Fiona-Jane Weston: Loving London

“The PR activities of Kerry Herbert on my behalf gave me a proper audience, got me previewed in all of Brighton’s press and even produced a grim-faced man lurking in the shadows with a pen and paper who lightened up when he got some cake.” Charmian Hughes: Charmageddon

“Stand-Up Marketing (Kerry) has been invaluable in her efforts with promoting my show ’10 Films with My Dad’ (see I snuck it in there, learnt that from her) by producing tailored press releases and contacting venues and events directly. This has led to some brilliant opportunities to perform at events like the East End Film Festival.” Aidan Goatley: 10 Films with My Dad, Edinburgh Fringe 2011 & 2012