1/29/05
The competition is over and what a great week it's been. With
packed shows all week we finished the competition at the Barracuda
on Saturday night to a crowd of 400 people. While this wasn't
quite as many as I would have liked to see, it sure felt like a
full show. In total over the 19 nights of the competition, nearly
3500 people saw the show, our highest total attendance ever. We
also had two firsts this year. It was the first year that we had
multiple nights of finals (finals have always been a 1-night thing),
and that seemed to work very well as it allowed a lot more people
to see the show (1000 for the week). And, it was our first year
of taking the show outside of the Portland metro area. This was
a big success as all of the out-of-town shows were packed and the
crowds just loved it. So, after all was said and done, and the final
scores for the week were tallied up, here is the top five rankings
out of the 20 total comics in the competition this
year:
5. Susanna Lee
4. Lonnie Bruhn
3. Travis Simmons
2. Ty Boeh
1. Keith Nelson
I have to extend a personal thanks to all five of the finalists.
It was a grueling month and everyone consistently put on great shows
for the crowds. Also a special thanks to Dwight Slade for doing
a stellar job hosting the finals week - Thanks Dwight!
I also have to give thanks to the Portland Mercury for making our
finals night at the Barracuda, Mercury's "Pick of the Week".
This was great press to get. The Portland Mercury is a great publication
and it's good to see a local newspaper that actually acknowledges
that professional stand-up comedy is alive and well in P-town.
Finally, I want to thank Eric Severson, Richie Stratton, Mark Saltveit,
and Joe Fontenot. Four great comics who weren't in this years' competition,
but each put in a lot of effort to help make this years competition
a success.
Well, that"s it for this year's competition. Please note
that if you're ever in the mood, I have two open mics that are always
welcoming to more comics and more audience:
Every Tuesday at The Old Barn on Barbur Blvd. (9-11pm)
Every Wednesday at The Wooden Chicken on NE 125th & Sandy (9-11pm)
Get
tickets to the finals!
1/25/05
First off, the competition to date ˆ We had a great
week with nearly 750 people coming out to see the shows over the
five nights. Friday and Saturday were both packed houses with 200
people at each location. The comics were all giving stellar performances
and I just have to say that I'm glad I didn't have to
judge, because the entire groups of semi-finalists are all very
talented entertainers. In the end though we had to go down to just
five finalists. And, while the scores were very close (extremely
close), here are the five finalists for the 8th annual Portland
Comedy Competition:
Keith Nelson
Lonnie Bruhn
Travis Simmons
Ty Boeh
Susanna Lee
Now, for this week, the finals actually start tonight at Hot Shots
in Vancouver. It is kind of a make-up night because of the ice storm
last week. Also, I know the website doesn"t list a show tonight,
but we've done a lot of point advertising at Hot Shots over the
past week, so the show should be fine.
Then, we are off to Salem, Springfield, and Covallis before coming
back to Portland for our finals night at Barracuda on Saturday at
8pm. The last night at Barracuda is going to be a wild night with
800-1000 expected in attendance and several of the who"s who
of Northwest agents and bookers in the crowd. it's going to
be an awesome show and I ask everyone receiving this email to invite
folks to attend. You can buy tickets at the door, or you can purchase
the tickets through Tickets West (www.ticketswest.com). A link to
Tickets West should be up on my web site soon. Tickets for the show
are only $10! Anyway, I hope to see you all at the show and I"ll
send out a final update on this Sunday announcing the winner.
1/13/05
So far, all of the shows have gone really,
really well. A great turnout for crowds on all nights and some amazing
performances by the comics. As of the completion of week 1 preliminaries,
here is a list of the top five comics that will be moving forward
to the semi-finals next week:
Tyler Boeh
Travis Simmons
Susanna Lee
Keith Nelson
Andre Paradise
This five will be matched up with the top five from this week of
preliminaries which starts tomorrow. |