This week I ran into my friend, Indy C. We haven’t seen each other in a while, so long that when someone told her I’d moved interstate, she believed them. We’ve both been busy and neither of us have spent a lot of time at the open mics where most comics in Townsville see each other.
Indy C’s a worker, always has been. That’s the first thing I noticed about her. At open mics I regularly see a lack of preparation, with most drunken newcomers arriving with nothing more than a couple of half-formed ideas and an anecdote that cracks them up at the office.
They’ve succumbed to a lifetime of people telling them they’re funny and should do comedy and decided that what comedians do looks pretty easy. They quickly learn that there’s a big difference between appealing to the shared sense of funny they share with their colleagues and evoking a positive and visceral reaction from a room full of complete strangers. If comedy were easy it’d be called Your Mum.
From day one, it’s been evident that Indy C does the work. She writes. She practices. She tests assumptions. She hustles. From running rooms, organizing events, travelling to gigs all over the state, even performing in other countries, she does the damn work. Nobody should begrudge any success and recognition that’s come with it.
I’m not surprised to learn that, even though she should probably have spent this year recovering from a battle with cancer that lasted a couple of years and got really fucking scary, she’s been developing software. “Have you seen my app?” she asked me.
She was referring to Gigglemaps, which she’s been toiling on. It’s an app designed to find comedy events in your area.
It took me a bit to load it, because I use a Google phone and Google really wanted to direct me to Google Maps. It took a few tries to get around the tech giant’s tendency to try and steer the conversation to itself, much like Microsoft constantly tries to convert your app preferences into it’s app preferences.
Microsoft is always trying to tell me how happy I’d be if I used Edge. I laugh because I’ve actually used Edge. In fact, it’s the only browser I download other browsers with. Google trying to reroute my efforts to find Gigglemaps to it’s app felt a bit like that.
The experience of using Gigglemaps is pretty easy and seamless. No login required (though I’m sure that’s different if you’re promoting your shows). Just say where and when you’re looking and it tells you what’s around. The results from my searches was entirely consistent with my expectations,
I love that the results are clear and legible. I’ve seen attempts at this kind of thing, and they generally feel clunky and hard to get around. The Gigglemaps experience is smooth and slick and feels like a well-rounded release from a big company.
I tested it with a few cities and was surprised at how well-populated they are. Naturally, as you’d expect if you’ve used Tinder or Grindr, you’re going to get more results from more populated areas.
To date I’ve used Open Comedy to find out where the gigs are all over the world, but it’s more like a noticeboard. I have some presence of my own there, because it lets you create profiles and stuff, so it’s more like a social media app that connects comics with agents and venues as well as comedians. It lists shows globally, but if you’re using it to try and find shows in your area, you might try Google instead. Or, better still, Gigglemaps.
Indy C’s spent hundred of hours on it so far, and it shows. She’s created a seamless and useful user experience. Apparently there’s been about two and a half thousand shows listed on it so far, so she’s able to put the whole thing under robust testing.
I’m not a software guy. While Indy’s been making this I’ve been writing books instead. Still, it only takes the merest glimpse for me to appreciate how this could be huge.
I’m always seeing comedy groups on Facebook in which someone from out of town meekly asks what open mics are around, awkwardly offering their CV as credentials, only to be ignored by the main populace.
Typically the people who run comedy rooms aren’t spending as much of their time scouring those Facebook groups for new talent as we imagine they are, because they seem to only arrive to promote their stuff and don’t stick around to read posts from anyone else.
This was my experience in Brisbane a few years ago. I’ve made a quite a few comedy friends who’ve since moved to Brisbane and assured me if I’m ever in their neck of the woods, they’d hook me up with weeks’ worth of work. That’s actually not what happened. Most comedy types are less efficient at running stuff than you might assume, and my messages didn’t get read or responded to. All due respect, but fuck those guys.
I went to post in the Brisbane equivalent of our Facebook group only to find a strident manifesto about how the group is only to support their own, and it’s not a place where outsiders can come and compete with them for precious slots in their awesome shows. We’ve always jumped in and recited all of the local action, offering to help them make contact, so I was pretty appalled to see this shit in Brisbane. All due respect, but fuck those guys.
As it happens, I did perform in Brisbane and it was a positive experience. I got to meet Damien Power for the first time, and we enjoyed each other’s sets, which was a high point for my whole trip there.
But, if I’d had Gigglemaps I could have bypassed all that “I’m a comic from North Queensland and, err, I’m pretty good and, umm, wondering what Open Mics are on here this month” crap, and nobody would have felt obligated to recall and recite all the rooms in town for me. You can bet if I’m in Brisbane again I’ll be using Gigglemaps instead of relying on the kindness of strangers. Or friends.
I mentioned Zoom comedy to Indy. She works hard at her live shows and connecting with audiences, so she wasn’t as familiar with online comedy as I am. If you’ve read my book, you’ll know how much comedy I did, worldwide over Zoom, in the year of Covid. Open Comedy was the tool I used for that, but it occurred to me that Gigglemaps could be something I’d find online comedy with and even participate in it. Indy C confirmed that the app functionality could include this in the future.
We also speculated about a couple of other ways it could be used. Knowing Indy, she’ll want to ensure the user experience is seamless and positive before she’d attempt anything like that. But the possibilities are exciting. Seeing Gigglemaps is like hearing a brilliant joke and wondering how it’s even possible that nobody else had already done it before.
The site: Gigglemaps.app. Have a play with it. I think you’ll agree that it’s a very good thing for live comedy.
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