Crumbley Comedy: the future of stand-up comedy?

How one midwestern comedy producer is creating model for comedy shows that everyone should know about. [This article is a work in progress]

Toledo is not known for being a great comedy city. To be sure, there are many places with bigger clubs, more prestigious etceteras, whatever. Toledo has a reliable room full of real, human, non-comedian, audience members who come to listen and laugh every night of the week and it's accessible even if you don't have a Netflix special. So first of all, why is this so cool? I won't have to convince comedians that a non-comic audience is infinitely better than the other comics who make up the audience of most open mics, but worth driving to Toledo for? Well, not for all people in all situations, but I think there are a couple of really good use-cases. The best of these is for the up-and-coming comic looking to organize a first, easy tour who is based out of Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit or any other place in the region. If you are a Chicago comic and you can set up one show in Pittsburgh (Or vice versa) then you can for sure set up a show in Toledo on the way there, on the way back, or both.

The man behind it all is Dave Crumbley, a producer who has spent the last five or so years building all of these shows mostly on the strength of having good relationships with the venues and the regulars. I plan to update this article with an interview with Dave soon The Crumbly Comedy model is ripe to be replicated anywhere in the country. One dedicated producer or a small team could build something similar almost anywhere and the more that more minor comedy cities have reliable, cool things like this and people know about it, the whole national comedy super-scene can become more interconnected around actually making cool shows happen in the real world.