Over here at Summit Comedy, we book comedians....sometimes they have “celebrity” status.  We have had the pleasure of working with many 

of the biggest names in the comedy business over the last 19 years.  Here is just a small sampling of talent we have worked with:

Hal Sparks, Josh Blue, Tom Segura, Iliza Shlesinger, Chris D'Elia, Colin Jost, Dave Coulier, DeRay Davis, Doug Stanhope, Jay Pharoah, Judah Friedlander, Michael Ian Black, Pete Davidson, Trevor Noah, Cecily Strong, Cristela Alonzo, Loni Love, Sasheer Zamata, Ben Bailey, Bo Burnham, Craig Robinson, Dave Attell, Hannibal Buress, Jim Breuer, John Oliver, Lavelle Crawford, Mike Birbiglia, Ralphie May, Richard Belzer, Amy Schumer, Bob Saget, Daniel Tosh, Dave Chappelle, Demetri Martin, Dennis Miller, Gabriel Iglesias, Kevin Hart, Rickey Smiley, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Kathy Griffin, Lisa Lampanelli, Monique

Hiring a celebrity comedian really isn’t that much different than hiring any other comedian.  The biggest differences are simply the price, and typically a celebrity comedian demands a bit more in their hospitality rider and maybe more production bells and whistles.

Step One: Reserve your venue.  Make sure it is available on the day of your event, and has the proper production needs for your event.

Step Two: Determine the budget you want to spend on your talent.  Celebrity Comedians typically start in the low end of $10,000 plus expenses and can go all the way up to $500k.  A good agent should be able to point you in the right direction with talent options that fits your specific budget, style of comedy desired &/or theme of event.

Step Three: Submit a formal offer for the talent you are interested in and the performance date desired.  If your offer is accepted, a contract and rider requirements will follow.

Step Four: Once your contract is fully executed between all parties involved, you need to promote your event if selling tickets.  Even if you have Jerry Seinfeld booked, no one will show up if the masses don’t know about the event.

Now I’ve simplified this process as there are many other small details and steps involved, but this is a great starting point in booking your celebrity comedian.  If you have any additional questions, please feel to contact us at Summit Comedy, Inc. and we will hand hold you from beginning until the end of your show to make sure your event goes over as smooth as possible making you look like a rock star in the process.

-Chuck Johnson
President; Summit Comedy, Inc.
www.summitcomedy.com
800-947-0657

As a comedy agent, I get free tickets to countless comedy shows throughout the year.  Sometimes it is for comedians you really want to see, sometimes it's actually just for "work" to evaluate new comedians for potential work opportunities with Summit Comedy.  Watching comedy as a 20+ year agent makes it hard sometimes since I've heard countless jokes, puns, premises, and "average comedy" just doesn't do much for me with actually "laughing".  My wife hates seeing comedy shows with me since I mostly sit stone faced "judging" the people onstage and even when I do find a joke "funny", many times just nod and say "that was pretty funny".  Periodically though I find comedians that make me laugh out loud and those are the people who I want and will work with.  

I can think of only 3 times (besides fund raiser events which I'm excluding) that I've actually had to purchase tickets to a comedy show.  One was for Brian Regan who is one of my favorite comedians, next was many years ago at the Comedy Cabana in Myrtle Beach who after me telling the owners "Hello, I'm Chuck from Summit Comedy" they said "Oh hey, I've heard of Summit, that'll be $12.50 please!"  (Hahaha), and last month I purchased tickets for Chris Rock for an upcoming date in NC.

Part of my tasks as a baby agent in the mid-1990s was to shuttle comedians around from airports, radio stations, TV stations, and sometimes even bus stations.  Yes, it's not always so glamorous in the entertainment business folks!  Back in 1995 I had to pick up comedian Chris Rock at the Charlotte, NC airport as he was performing at the Comedy Zone that weekend.  He wasn't a household name at that time, but he had recently finished up working as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, and was making the comedy club rounds.

This was pre-9/11 days when you could actually go all the way to the airport gate to great guests.  Well, I'm not sure if I was late, or his flight was early, so when I got to his gate, the plane had already emptied and I was forced to run around the airport looking for him.  To no avail, I then had to go to the info desk and have him paged to meet me at baggage claim.  Picture this scene..."Paging Chris Rock....Mr. Chris Rock, please meet your party at baggage claim!"  Again, this pre-dates cell phones and in my defense he wasn't a huge STAR yet so I knew this wouldn't create a TMZ-like paparazzi mob, and it was the only way I knew how to get him to where I was waiting for him.

Well, turns out, he already left the airport grabbing a cab to the hotel where he was staying.  I never went to see his show that weekend, so to this day I've never seen Chris Rock live.  I've met and have worked with thousands of comedians both famous and not yet famous over the last 2 decades.  Some just stand out with amazing talent that you should take time out to go see them if nearby regardless if you have to purchase tickets or not, so when Chris Rock announced his new tour for this year, I jumped at the chance to see the comedy legend and bought tickets for a comedy field trip to see him at a casino stop in North Carolina.  Something tells me I'm going to put away my "judging cap" and laugh out loud at this one!? ;)

-Chuck Johnson
President; Summit Comedy, Inc.
(800) 947-0651

What’s in a name?!  Apparently, everything!  When a business owner is trying to think of the name of his/her company, there’s a lot of thought that goes into it.  You want it memorable, relative to your product and maybe even something personal.  So in 1998 when I decided to start my own entertainment business, I was brainstorming for ideas.  It was on a road trip up to Boone, NC when I looked up at the approaching Appalachian mountain range and my wife said “Summit Entertainment”.  It was perfect!  We both had gone to Appalachian State University, and the phrase “You can’t get higher than the Summit” still spills out of my mouth sometimes while doing sales pitches in trade show booths.  Yeah, I know that sounds completely cheesy, but if you know anything about trade shows, you get tired of saying the same sales pitch over and over and over.

And so it began.  Summit Entertainment was born.  I knew there were not any comedy agencies in the country with a competing name so I went to downtown Charlotte to register my company name.  Back in 1998 the internet wasn’t where you’d go yet to search any competing company names.  The internet was pretty fresh and new!  I did register the website domain www.summitentertainment.com and began my comedy business!

Within a year from my start up, I did discover that there was another company named “Summit Entertainment” on the west coast that was a movie production company that had started a few years before my company.  I didn’t think too much of it since they did movies, I sold jokes.  I don’t think anyone was confusing the 2 of us, until…..

After a few years I started getting emails sent to me that was clearly for the “Summit Entertainment” movie company.  I would kindly reply, telling them they had the wrong company every time and went about my own business.  Sometimes I would forward the emails to the other company as well just to be nice as I started getting more and more of them.  Note to reader: *being nice in "business" doesn't always help you unfortunately. One day I got an email that said “Final Script: ‘The Mexican’ starring Brad Pitt & Julia Roberts”.  I thought it was funny that I would be getting this one, but I still forwarded it on to the appropriate business.  Within a week of that email I had a Cease & Desist letter from their lawyer.  After all, we had the EXACT same company name, and a very similar mountain range logo who my buddy Jeff Katowitz had designed.  My lawyer said I could fight them in court, but I would probably lose since they had the name registered first.

Now here’s where the biggest error I’ve ever made in my business thus far.  I sold them the website domain www.summitentertainment.com  I did get a decent about of money for it back in 2001, but this was before this company hit it BIG!  How big, well, let’s just tell you that Summit Entertainment went on to produce many movies as well as the entire “TWILIGHT” Vampire movie series.  I still kick myself every time I see their logo pop up, knowing that I could have held on to that domain longer and asked for a much bigger price tag.  In 2012 Lionsgate Films acquired Summit Entertainment for $412.5 million. You live and you learn I guess!  That’s the nature of business!

I incorporated my business in 2001, changed my company to Summit Comedy, Inc. and I’m waiting for someone to offer me $412.5 million for it.  No takers yet, so I’ll continue to sell jokes to masses.  Good thing I LOVE what I do for a living!  Someone once said, if you love what you do for a living, you’ll never work a day in your life!  I haven't "worked" in 22 years! ;)

-Chuck Johnson
President; Summit Comedy, Inc.
www.summitcomedy.com
800.947.0651

Comedy Field Trips!

If you are a comedy agent, you typically are booking comedy shows all over the country and if you’re lucky, even outside of the United States.  The more shows you book, the harder it is to visit and meet the clients face to face that are utilizing your booking services, it’s just part of the job.

When the shows are somewhat within driving distance to my office, I like to visit them and watch the comedy shows I’m booking to see & evaluate the comedians performing their jobs, as well as personally meet and thank the clients that Summit Comedy are working with.  I call these “Comedy Field Trips”!  Sometimes I’ll bring close friends of mine as well to enjoy the comedy show, and if possible, make a fun trip out of it to include the local sites of the destination and possibly get a round of golf in pre or post show.  Yes, the phrase “I’m working!” sounds hard to swallow as you’re reading this, but I can’t help that there are many perks to my job, and as Taylor Swift says “Haters gonna hate, hate, hate…”, or however that song goes?! ;)

Upon graduating college and before starting Summit Comedy, I worked with the now defunct comedy agency Creative Entertainment.  In my first month of being hired, the company’s owner, Brad Greenberg, said to me, “On Saturday, you and I are driving to Atlanta to go meet with a new club client we are working with.”  This was indeed my first comedy field trip.

Saturday came & we were off to Atlanta, GA!  Brad, was on the phone the entire time making business calls on his big Motorola flip phone like the one pictured below.  I drove, he made calls….one after another.  I was in full learning mode listening to him make and negotiate comedy deals.  I learned a lot from this man and still appreciate the fact that he took a chance on me.

This trip had 2 objectives.  One was to meet up with the very talented guitarist (Gibb Droll) who was apparently a family friend of Brad’s who he wanted to meet up and possibly chat about representation.  Even though he owned a comedy agency, Brad was always looking outside the box on how to make more money in the entertainment market.  He was apparently in the “Wrestling bear” and “Chippendale” business before striking gold in the 80s during the comedy boom.  The second objective was to go visit the new venue they were booking comedy for.

After our dinner with Gibb Droll, we had to shuffle over to the venue.  We drive up to a building that had a marquee saying “ALL NUDE DANCERS” in big letters and underneath in small print saying “& free comedy”.  Yes people, comedy at a strip club.  This doesn’t say a lot for the establishment if you have to offer comedy as a second form of entertainment for a gentleman’s club?!  It was a one comedian format designed to have comedy sets during the “breaks” of the dancers.  That comedian was Billy Gardell.  If you’re not familiar with Billy, many moons later he had a big hit on the CBS show "Mike & Molly".  Not too long ago I was watching late night TV and saw Billy discussing working up the ranks of the comedy business and Conan O’Brien asked him about the “toughest gig he ever had”....

Watch BILLY GARDELL of Conan here.....

I literally laughed out loud watching this.  Also, he mentioned in this clip that it was approximately 1990.  My story was actually in 1995, so either he was off on his year, or he worked a LOT of strip clubs early in his career and many other agents have this exact same story.  Haha.  I’ve only met Billy twice early on in my career, but I can’t wait until our paths cross again to tell him this story personally regarding my first ever comedy field trip.  This business is a crazy roller coaster ride full of "comedy field trips".

-Chuck Johnson
President; Summit Comedy, Inc.
www.summitcomedy.com
800.947.0651

From Sex Police to my own Comedy Agency

Golf is my hobby, it’s my happy place and I try to visit it often.  Everyone should have a “Happy Place” right?  I wish my hobby was a bit more affordable, but I digress.  Often times if you don’t have a foursome arranged in advance, you get paired up with other strangers coming to their happy place as well.  I honestly don’t mind since I’m an extrovert by nature and love meeting new people.  At some point in the round (4-5 hours typically) it’s almost inevitable that you get asked “What do you do for a living?”.  All of my friends know that I’m a comedy agent, but when a stranger asks you that question, it’s NEVER left with just “Cool.”  There’s ALWAYS follow-up questions: “Do you get to meet famous people?”, “How do you scout your talent?”, “I’m funny, can you hire me?”, etc.  One of the most frequently asked questions is…..”How’d you get into that line of work?”

My answer is always, “SEX POLICE”.

I’ve been a huge music fan since the first time I heard the band KISS in the 70s, and even when I enrolled at Appalachian State University in 1991 (Yes, THAT Appalachian State who famously beat Univ. of Michigan in ’07), I knew that I wanted to go into the music/entertainment business.  While attending A.S.U., there was a regional band out of Chapel Hill, NC named SEX POLICE that was pretty popular and they were booked to perform at the school.  Being a broke college student and going to see live shows all the time didn’t mix well, but someone had mentioned to me if I joined the campus activities board (A.P.P.S.) and helped make promotional banners/posters for SEX POLICE that I not only would get into the SEX POLICE show for FREE, that I would get to see EVERY live entertainment show on campus and would be part of the planning process for all of them.

I couldn’t sign up quick enough.  Me and my partner in crime Mike McDowell painted a SEX POLICE promotional banner outside of the now defunct “Gold Room”.  I continued to be a part of this on-campus programming the rest of my days in college.  The highlight was indeed my senior year.  I was the chairperson of what they called “Stage Shows”.  I was overseeing a group of about 30 students and we literally planned events EVERY week for the entire school year.  My senior year alone, I was responsible in some way for all these bands: Dave Matthews, Widespread Panic, Hootie & The Blowfish, A Tribe Called Quest, and countless others.  We also put on a few comedy shows throughout the school year as well that we booked through a comedy agency (Creative Entertainment/The Comedy Zone) in Charlotte, NC a few hours away, which was, and still is, my hometown.

I was sent in the Fall of ’94 with a few others involved with programming Birmingham, AL for a weekend to attend a college programming conference called NACA.  This was a regional conference for schools in the entire Southeast region to show up and learn more about programming ideas, and to see bands, comedians, hypnotists, jugglers, poets, magicians, and basically anything else imaginable in the live entertainment realm.  While there I met with a woman (Linda Greenberg) who worked at Creative Entertainment in Charlotte.  She gave me her business card and told me to call her when I graduated.  Now again, I liked comedy, who doesn’t like to laugh, right?  But the music business was where I wanted to be….so I thought.

Fast forward to May of 1995.  I’ve graduated, I start to look for a job in the Charlotte area.  There’s not a lot of entertainment options in the southeast & I wasn’t quite ready to make that big jump to NYC or LA where I knew I could find a job easier.  There was one music agency in Charlotte I had my eye on, but I just couldn’t wedge my way into a position with them.  I pull out the business card I had received 7 months earlier, and called up Creative Entertainment.  I got an interview, I showed up in a suit, they laughed at me (everyone was in t-shirts & shorts), but was hired anyway as a new college agent. Kind of brilliant on their part, right?  Here’s a guy fresh out of college, let him sell college comedians to college kids basically his own age.  Creative Entertainment booked many comedy clubs around the country as well.  They were in the college & corporate market, and they also managed comedians.  A few of them they managed included Pat Godwin, Rodney Carrington, and Carrot Top.  Carrot Top was a HUGE star in the college market at that time, and here’s this new/green agent assigned as one of his main agents to get him more work in the college market.

Let it also be known, that when I was hired to be a comedy agent, I had probably seen no more than 6-8 comedy shows while in college, and had NEVER gone to a comedy club.  Haha.  The agency owned a comedy club in Charlotte, and the owner of the Creative Entertainment (Brad Greenberg) told me my homework was to go to the club EVERY weekend and see the comedians performing.  It really was a trial by fire into learning as much about the comedy business as possible.  I’m a quick learner, and asked a lot of questions.  I had also realized during this learning process that in my opinion, booking comedy was MUCH easier than booking bands.  The production needs were so much easier, and less egos/humans to deal with than bands.  For the most part: One comedian, one microphone, easy breezy.

After about 1.5 years into my comedy agency baptism, Carrot Top (Scott Thompson) moved on to bigger things and left the Charlotte based agency.  It was a great move for Scott, as he eventually landed a full-time Vegas residency gig at the Luxor where he remains today.

I then shifted my agent duties into booking the Comedy Zone night clubs as well as maintaining a foothold in the college comedian market.  Just shy of my 3-year anniversary with Creative Entertainment, I was unfortunately down-sized.  I saw the writing on the wall, as the Carrot Top money train had left the building, and the ol’ “last hired, first to be fired” rule came into effect.  Within days of being laid off, I had created a new business name, logo, gotten a business license, and proceeded to start a comedy empire.  That was in the Summer of 1998…..almost 19 years later, I’m still selling jokes…..because if you’ve ever played golf with me, you’d know I’m clearly not good enough for the PGA tour.

-Chuck Johnson
President; Summit Comedy, Inc.
800.947.0651
www.summitcomedy.com

Welcome To The Summit Comedy Blogger Blog! Everybody Loves Comedians!

We are excited to announce the Summit Comedy Blogger blog where we will be sharing exciting news and information pertaining to comedians and stand up talent. If you are interested in booking a comedian for your corporate or college event, let us know and we will be glad to help!