This is a review of the place, not the acts. Which is how it should be, dummies. You don’t rate a movie theater based on which movies are showing there because you can choose your damn movie. And just because Comedy Works books good acts doesn’t make it a good venue. They just know they’re the only game in town.
We got there at 9:30, which was the time for “Doors” on our tickets. Maybe it’s our fault for thinking that “Doors” meant, “Come in, sit down, have a drink” instead of, “Come in the front door, stand around like an asshole for 45 minutes while jammed in with a bunch of other people, and then go to your seats.” Concert venues suck, but even THEY are better behaved than that. And after the 45-minute wait, this weird lady in a Hillary Clinton suit has the nerve to address the line in a very angry voice and tell everyone to have their ID’s ready. She had that shitty, We’re doing you a huge favor by letting you in attitude. Piss off, lady. Does buying a drink and splashing it in someone’s face count towards my two-drink minimum? And then, half-way through the show, this dummy planted herself at a pillar right next to my fucking seat and started chatting with a waitress. Hi, would it bother you if we have a conversation right next to your head? I bet we are just as entertaining as a professional comedian. Well, thank god there was some kind of crisis, most likely someone trying to cheat her out of a dime, that caused her to get the hell out of there. You shouldn’t have to tell someone running a comedy club to shut the fuck up while the headliner is on stage.
The other thing they still haven’t figured out is the two-drink minimum. You don’t create a drinking environment by forcing people to have two drinks. Especially when those drinks are five-dollar beers and six-dollar well whiskey shots. When I hang out somewhere, I want a drink maximum. Drink maximum=good time. Drink minimum equals angry, picky jerkoffs.
I take my role as a designated driver with very little seriousness, but it would have been nice to start in on my two drinks at 9:30, plenty sober to drive home by the end of the show. Instead, you get rolling at 10:45 and drive home over a street filled with sleeping bags that may or may not contain bums.
Oh, and they have the brilliant plan of having “Table Service.” Don’t be fooled. This does not imply the presence of tables OR service. Unless the service is some angry waitress bothering you while you’re trying to watch a goddamn comedy show. I’m not interested in you. I didn’t pay thirty bucks to talk to you in your dumb black stretch pants. Leave me alone! They have waitresses and busboys walking through the cramped aisles during the entirety of the show. And you get to tip them for it, which is awesome. Hire an invisible woman. That’s worth a tip. OR, figure it out like a concert venue, have an opener to extend the show, and have a clear path to the bar. People will drink. We are TRYING to drink, trust me. I want to be drunk(er) right now. We don’t have someone walking through the movies selling popcorn. Why? Because it disrupts the show, which is what we came for.
How about you treat your guests like guests? Jesus, by the end of the night you’re paying fifty dollars for about an hour of entertainment. Well, to be fair, I DID increase your utility bill by standing around upstairs for an hour and raising the temperature. But I think things are still working out in your favor. You’re not a fucking airport, you don’t need ropes and ushers and a bizarre process that involves vouchers traded for tickets handed to a guy ten feet away who is separate from the person checking your ID. Get it together. That shit’s more complicated than figuring out the order of the bosses on Mega Man IV.
It’s supposed to be funny. We’re here to laugh. So smile, you assholes.