How To Set Up Your Own Comedy Night

Unlike theatres, music venues and sporting events you can pretty much hold a comedy gig anywhere. Although there certainly won’t be that much money in the venture at first, it’s always a jolly good hoot to put on your night.

Not all comedy nights have to be like the flashy and expensive Jongleurs and Comedy Stores of this world. An intimate night of cheap thrills in a dingy basement can be just as fun.

In fact some of London’s most exciting and vibrant comedy club nights started life in small, intimate venues. Long running events like 99 Comedy Club and Knock2Bag are now franchises in themselves. So, at the end of the day, setting up a comedy night is pretty easy – but how do you make it successful? Follow these top 5 easy steps to organise the best independent comedy night in London.

1) Book a venue – nobody wants to be left out in the cold and this could take ages to organise so it should be the first thing on your To-Do list!

2) Get some comedians – Plenty of comedians just starting out are willing to perform for the cost of a pint. But be aware that if you want this night to be a regular occurrence, book good acts, or your punters won’t be back!

3) Promote, promote, promote! Get a press release, contact the major comedy sites with all your Bullseye – Digital Events Marketing tricks, start a Facebook page and invite people to your event, get on Twitter and just get the word out!

4) Invite some people – at least this way, if only 3 people pay to get in at least it will look busy

5) Have fun – this is your night after all. Enjoy yourself!

Best Alternative Halloween Parties

Here at London After Work we're always looking to do things a bit differently and so I was thrilled to discover that there are quite a few alternatives to the traditional Halloween shenanigans going on.

Everything from a Zombie Beach Party at Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes to Sud Electronic's first Halloween Party for 5 years!

It's time to do something a bit different so for more ideas on what to get up to over Halloween then check out the Best Alternative Halloween Parties.

There is an overwhelming amount of choice in the capital this Halloween - but whatever you do, dress up and have fun.

Daunt Books

Now I don't get much time to go shopping for books during the week. A quick nip to WHSmith during my lunch hour is never very satisfying and I tend to order a lot of stuff on-line from Amazon. But all that is about to change as I've just discovered London's legendary Daunt bookshop is open until the healthy time of 7.30pm Monday-Saturday.

Daunt Books is the oldest purpose built bookshop in Britain and is a brilliant place for bookworms to mix and mingle or share their latest finds. Rather uniquely, the books are arranged by geography rather than alphabetically or by genre - and I find this really helpful. Last time I went to pick up a Dostoevsky novel and walked out with a book on the Russian Royal family too.!

Daunt Books also host plenty of talks, accommodating an audience of 150, and tickets are generally£5 and include a glass of wine! What's not to love?

One Magic Summer

Ah, summertime. There's no better month than August to get out into the city to have a bit of an explore and with so many free events and festivals going on there's no excuse not to!

From today until the end of the month there are performances, magic acts, comedy, tennis and even free deck chairs to have a lounge around in.

These events are going on all day, so handy to nip down after work or soak up a bit of culture and fun in your lunch hour.

Full details or all the events at the Trafalgar Square website. I think a lot of people will be surprised to find out it's not all about the Fourth Plinth!

The Lost Art of Palmistry

I must confess to being at least a little superstitous. I mean, I don't walk under ladders and I'm an avid reader of my horoscope but I never really thought I would want to look into the murky unknown very much, at least not for fun.

However, last week my friend told me about this really great event that happens once a month which talks all about the lost art of palmistry and not in a showy fairground ride way either!

On the first Wednesday of every month the LAP Meet Up Group get together to talk about an experience Palmistry.

You can also experience palm readings yourself for the cost of £500 and the 60 minute talk remains completely free!

The event starts with a little mingling party at 6pm and is also a good opportunity to meet some new friends.

More info here

Keep Bees! The new eco-friendly after work activity

Believe it or not, the new craze that's sweeping the nation is bee keeping! Recent studies have shown that the common English bee is not so common anymore because pesticides and confinement to specific areas is contributing to their demise.

A new initiative has been launched that hopes to quell the coming extinction of our furry friends, which encourages those living in urban areas, particularly London, to take up bee keeping. Natural England, the government's advisor on the natural environment, wants to encourage homeowners to install their own mini hives to help with the decline of almost all of the UK's 250 species of bees.

A new easy-to-use beehive called 'beehaus' has been released today from the company Omlet. It has a contemporary design and comes in an array of colours to encourage people to purchase it.

Apparently hives are easy to use and can be placed in your garden or on the roof of your accomodation. Advisors say that you need only spend one hour a week with your bees and as they hibernate during the winter months it's not a full time ocupation.

I think this is a great evening activity once a week and bee keeping is an extremely relaxing vocation. And let us not forget that, aside from the benefits to our environment, they'll be benefits to you as well! An endless supply of honey? Where do I sign up?

It's....Karaoke Time!

Now I may not be much of a singer, but I do love a good sing-song now and again, and to my delight I've discovered that karaoke is having something of a moment in the London scene right now.

After not much digging around I found that plenty of pubs and bars around London host their own karaoke nights. To beat that even, there seem to be lots of dedicated karaoke venues where you can even rent out private rooms by the hour for you and a bunch of mates.

This is a great winding down after work activity and I'm going to try to set something up with a group of colleagues from work in the next few weeks. I like the look of Lucky Voice the best so far, but I'm open to suggestions...