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Live Nation to open comedy club in Fishtown

Live comedy is about to get a big bump-up locally with the opening of the Punch Line in Fishtown. This 300-seat showroom will become the city's second major comedy club when it opens in July across the street from the Fillmore music complex, also steered by Live Nation.

Artists rendering of the exterior of the Punch Line comedy club planned to open in July in Fishtown.
Artists rendering of the exterior of the Punch Line comedy club planned to open in July in Fishtown.Read more

Live comedy is about to get a big bump-up locally with the opening of the Punch Line in Fishtown.

This 300-seat showroom will become the city's second major comedy club when it opens in July across the street from the Fillmore music complex, also steered by Live Nation.

Comedy is enjoying "its hottest run in history," said Live Nation Comedy president Geof Wills. "And most major cities now support three or four comedy clubs."

Last August, a big Live Nation bet paid off here when Wills dared to book "the first ever comedy show in an NFL stadium" - selling all 53,000 seats to Philly guy Kevin Hart's "What Now?" show at Lincoln Financial Field.

"We didn't try doing that anywhere else," Wills said, though Hart sold as many tickets, in total, at multi-night stands in New York and Chicago.

Live Nation Comedy also scores major yuks and bucks with its recurring Oddball Comedy Festival, landing at summer "sheds" in Camden and elsewhere. In 2015, Oddball moved 215,000 tickets and grossed $8.5 million, supporting the notion that some cutting-edge comics (think Louis C.K., Amy Schumer, Aziz Ansari, Katt Williams) are now as hot as pop and rock stars.

Bolstered by a boom in exposure on cable channels, streaming services and social media, at least 75 comedians now have sufficient following to warrant theater headlining gigs, said talent agent Mike Berkowitz of Agency for the Performing Arts.

Billboard magazine has valued cumulative U.S. ticket sales for the live comedy business in excess of $300 million annually.

And comedy capers enjoy high profit margins, noted live-events tracker Gary Bongiovonni of Pollstar, inasmuch the jokesters use "just a microphone."

As its first comedy clubhouse on the East Coast, Live Nation is planting a big flag in Philly with Punch Line, nearing completion across Allen Street from the Fillmore, which the same team unfurled Oct. 1.

To warm locals to the name - already applied to clubs in San Francisco and Sacramento - a "Punch Line Presents" comedy showcase is being mounted Friday in the smaller Fillmore Philly space called the Foundry. Then, on Saturday, funny man Brian Reagan will serve up two shows at the Merriam Theater.

Aiming to open in "early July," in what was once an ice manufacturing facility servicing pre-electric "ice boxes," the Punch Line will greet arrivals with a drinking/dining patio "where we might also stage some local comedy nights," said Ron Bension, Live Nation's House of Blues entertainment division president.

Visitors then move undercover to another bar/eating zone - "a good place to hang before the show" - then into a rectangular showroom with table and perimeter banquette accommodations for 300 guests, or 400 for private receptions "which we're doing a lot," said Fillmore Philly general manager Jason Bray.

So who's on first?

Confirmed headliners include Canadian export Russell Peters, film and TV notable Marlon Wayans, Deon Cole (from ABC's Black-ish), Pablo Francisco, Robert Kelly (from FX's Louie), and Comedy Central's Nikki Glaser.

Wills said the Punch Line will also pull in some major "underplays" such as Dave Chappelle, who "could easily sell out large theaters but prefers to play clubs because of the intimacy and opportunity to test new material."

Professional grumpsters used to half-joke about contests where the "grand prize" was "an all-expense-paid night in Philadelphia." And the second prize? "Three nights."

"Times were bleak here in the late 1980s and '90s for comedy," said Marc Grossman, proprietor of the Helium comedy club at 2031 Sansom St. and now the only guy who seems threatened (but not really, he says) by the imminent arrival of Punch Line.

"This town was super saturated with places promoting comedy nights and not enough talent to go around. So you saw the same guys working a firehouse one night, a corner bar the next, a comedy club the night after that. Eventually that killed most of the scene, leaving just our club" - which this former Wall Street trader opened in 2005 - "and the Laff House Comedy Club on South Street."

The latter was a 20-year breeding ground for such budding black comedians as Hart and Cole. The Laff House fell on hard times and closed in 2013 after proprietor Rod Millwood lost his wife and partner, Mona. He's now working a bit of a comeback with occasional weekend shows at 2102 Market St.

Amateur funny bunnies are also twitching their whiskers at floating showcases sponsored by Laughs on Philly and Good Good Comedy. Local improvisers wing it at the N Crowd, 257 N. Third St., and the Adrienne Theater-based Philly Improv Theater and ComedySportz at 2030 Sansom.

Across the street, Grossman has been flying high on Helium - also operating clubs in Buffalo, St. Louis, Raleigh, and Portland, Ore. He credits today's boom in comedy to "streaming services like Netflix and YouTube" and the "social media marketing savviness" of young comedians such as Bo Burnham and John Mulaney. "You get to know them so well you feel like they're your friends and have to go see them live."

takiffj@phillynews.com
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