A Blue Whale RIOT

Tulsa team heads west for LA alt-comedy festival

On January 28, the Blue Whale Comedy Team headed out west for RIOT LA, Los Angeles’s largest alt-comedy festival. After attending alone in 2015, I knew I wanted to bring everyone else along for the ride this year. 

Not only did we get to see over a hundred comedians in one weekend, we learned about the back end of a festival and how Blue Whale can be more efficient.

Abbey Londer, founder and director of RIOT LA, graciously offered us an insider’s view of how to run an alt-comedy festival, with tips on available talent and agencies, as well as best practices for things like ticketing, passes, and festival structure. 

RIOT was also a great opportunity to check in on Oklahoma comics like Josh Fadem and Leah Kayajanian, both of whom are out there killing it in L.A. We met with past Blue Whale performers and the agents we use to book them. Additionally, our team took a tour of the Creative Artist Agency offices with CAA Agent Tyler Amato, and we hosted a pre-RIOT happy hour for all Blue Whale-affiliated comedians, agents, and our Oklahoma pals. 

When we started Blue Whale Comedy Festival in 2013, it was hard to get agents to take our calls and to convince comics to come to Oklahoma. Although it’s taken a few years, Blue Whale is now on par with what’s going on in much larger cities.

The next time you attend a large-scale event in Tulsa—whether it’s Blue Whale, the Route 66 Marathon, Tulsa Tough, XPO, or Tulsa Overground—remember there’s a team of people behind it traveling, researching, hustling, networking, raising money, and losing sleep and hair, all in the name of bringing something cool to Tulsa.

Blue Whale Comedy Festival will take place in Tulsa from September 8-11, 2016 in the Brady Arts District with historic Cain’s Ballroom as the new headlining venue.