I helped with a fundraiser at my highschool last night. when they started to plan this fundraiser (a coffee house with entertainment, ) I had three people come up to me and ask me if I would help, seeing no harm in it, I obliged. they asked if I could do a twenty minute piece for it, as they didn't have a lot of performers, and I told them my act could be adapted, but the didn't tell me they needed twenty minutes until the night before the show. but that's no problem, I had several routines that I could use.

when the coffee house started, everything went well, but as it progressed, people started deciding to change their act, THAT NIGHT!! many of these performers their second act was longer than there first, so they cut out the second part of my act. after I had done my show I was sitting in the audience fairly early in the show, and several times they had the emcee come out and say something like "ok, our next act is getting ready, so talk amongst yourselves until they come out." and then just dead air, or they would tell someone to go out and "stall" so they would come out and ramble on until the next act was ready, at one point the kid "stalling" sat there for a minute and said "stalling, stalling, staaaaaaaaalling". I went up once and did a short comedy act for the audience because no one was up there. anyway, it was a looooooooooong night, if we do another coffee house, then I will definately have some suggestions on how to run things.

P.S. I will be amazed if anyone actually sits here and reads this entire thing, it's mainly me ranting

Reminds me of Jackie Gleason's show. Back then the show was always live and often they ran short. He'd come out and talk a little bit and then dance around for the rest of the time to run out the clock. It actually became something of a running gag because he'd always try to do a flip at the end of the dance. Considering how huge he was, it's no surprise he always landed square on his butt. Hahahaha.

This is the reason that the emcee has to be a good entertainer. I don't know what sort of magic you do, but since you were able to get up there and do a comedy bit during the dead time, perhaps you might consider being the actual emcee next time, possibly even closing with your act, if there is not a great deal of set-up involved.

Yours,

Paul

Yeah, I know, I considered that, but the thing is that the emcee is the one that's been putting these together, so I don't want to "horn in on her territory". however, I have a feeling that she wasn't very comfortable emcee'ing, so if she says that, I may volenteer to be emcee. thanx for the responses, guys, aparently we're going another show in the spring. I'll still help out, of coarse, as long as it's more organized this time.

PS merry christmas and happy new year!!!

A close friend of mine wanted to start a coffee house night with live entertainment at our church. He's great with a guitar, but he isn't an emcee.

We had a discussion where I offered to make him the star so he didn't need to make announcements about the location of the restrooms. I give my friend credit several times a night for creating the event. All compliments I may receive are met with the response, "Thanks, but Jim is the one who put this thing togther." or "I'm just an assistant for Jim."

The event certainly is better off with me being the emcee. Jim is receiving the credit he deserves and our church makes a few extra bucks each month.

Having been at this for a while, we've worked a few tricks to keep things moving. We give the act 15 or twenty minutes for a set. When the act finishes a song close to that mark, I jump on stage at ask the audience to applaud. During the clap, I ask the act if they have one more song to do for that set. If so, I announce it and give them their "encore."

Some acts want the stage all night, even when we've gone over the choreography and they've been there before. These folks experience an equipment malfunction (all their audio equipment goes dead). I come out with a live mike, apologise for the technical problem and boot them off the stage (in a politically correct fashion) so the next group can take the stage.

When there promises to be a long period of dead air, we have canned music as filler. At times, this is appreciated more than an endless magic show.

Don't know whether any of this is of use to you, but it's my two cents...
David