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<\/p>\nHow much would you pay for someone to turn a projector on for you every night for a week? $100? $200 and a couple drinks?<\/p>\n
What about $7,000?<\/p>\n
This is how much Ethan Cavanagh and Sweeney Preston, the two comedians behind the combination comedy and wine-sampling show In Pour Taste, were quoted for one of their previous runs at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF).<\/p>\n
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Sweeney Preston and Ethan Cavanagh’s In Pour Taste show is part stand-up comedy, part wine appreciation night. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
“That is probably one of the craziest ones we’ve ever had to deal with,” Preston tells ABC News.<\/p>\n
“That’s not even tech for you or anything. There was already a projector hanging from the roof; the only thing they would have needed to do was turn it on and they would have charged $7,000 a week.”<\/p>\n
How the world’s biggest comedy festival came to Melbourne, and lasted 40 years<\/a><\/p>\n The very first Melbourne International Comedy Festival launched 40 years ago, and while it’s kept its scrappy charm, things look pretty different today.<\/p>\n Preston and Cavanagh declined the offer, instead using (and turning on) their own projector and utilising “a very precarious wobbly screen nestled below a fully functional AV set up in the venue that we weren’t allowed to use”.<\/p>\n Now in its 40th year, MICF is one of the largest comedy festivals in the world with a record-breaking 800 acts taking to stages across the city over March and April. Its large and eclectic offering is in part due to the fact that MICF is open access for Australian and New Zealand residents: if you’ve got $455 for registration and a show to perform, you can join in on the fun.<\/p>\n But the punters are rarely privy to the long list of costs that cause many performers to leave the festival out of pocket.<\/p>\n Hiring a producer<\/p>\n The MICF registration fee<\/a> means a performer is guaranteed three things: a show listing in the festival’s print and digital marketing materials, a page on their website with a ticketing link and access to handbooks and resource guides provided by the festival.<\/p>\n Everything beyond that is up to the act to figure out. For bigger name acts, and performers who can afford it, the details of their run will be handled by a producer who will take a cut of the final profits \u2014 if there are any.<\/p>\n Those left without a producer must manage both performance and production.<\/p>\n Meg J\u00e4ger was nominated for Best Newcomer 2025 at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. (Supplied: Emma Holland)<\/p>\n RAW comedy<\/a> national finalist Meg J\u00e4ger has experienced both extremes. After her management company, The Junkyard<\/a>, went insolvent just months before the 2025 MICF, the young comedian had no option but to self-produce her debut solo show, Renaissance Woman.<\/p>\n “It was so stressful because I was teaching and a writer at The Project at the time. I was working like six days a week. Every day after work, I was printing flyers or answering a ton of emails and paying for fees that I didn’t even know about,” J\u00e4ger told ABC News.<\/p>\n “I think by July my body shut down a bit. I went to the doctor and my doctor was like, ‘You are deficient in everything. Have you slept?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t think so.'”<\/p>\n After spending more than $11,000 on her 2025 MICF run, J\u00e4ger says that while her tickets sold \u2014 thanks in part to a Best Newcomer nomination \u2014 she ended the festival with zero profit.<\/p>\n But the comedian stresses that this was not an unexpected outcome and her passion for the industry keeps her motivated.<\/p>\n “This is the path I’ve chosen. It’s like when I was in university, I would have to do these six-week unpaid teaching placements,” she says.<\/p>\n “But by the end of it, it progressed me in my degree and \u2026 my career.”<\/p>\n Before being nominated for Best Newcomer, Meg J\u00e4ger got to the national finals of MICF’s RAW comedy competition. (Supplied)<\/p>\n Having managed to secure a producer for her 2026 run, J\u00e4ger says the experience is like “night and day”, but many other comedians don’t have the option.<\/p>\n Cavanagh and Preston \u2014 who have backgrounds in media and events, and rely on comedy as their sole income \u2014 created their own production company (staffed by themselves) in order to juggle In Pour Taste, their solo hours and their Late Night Powerpoint variety shows.<\/p>\n But for those like Melbourne comedian Oliver Hunter who have to fit stand-up comedy around a nine-to-five job and a family, the only option is to be self-produced.<\/p>\n Oliver Hunter balances stand-up comedy with his day job working for the local council. (Supplied)<\/p>\n “Comedy is nowhere near my sole income. That is the dream, as most people in comedy would probably say,” Hunter told ABC News.<\/p>\n Now participating in his fourth MICF, Hunter has opted to do a shorter run \u2014 two weeks of shows instead of the full month \u2014 and employs his brother to run tech for him in order to cut down on show costs.<\/p>\n “I’m very fortunate. I’ve paid him $50 a night, then it’s $150 a night for the venue,” he says.<\/p>\n “I’m doing four shows a week for two weeks, so I’m looking at $200 a night for eight shows, so $1,600 [in total]. You throw in $500 for the festival, [and] $1,000 for marketing.<\/p>\n “I think I’m about $3,000 [in] and that’s before I’ve even left the house.”Location, location, location<\/p>\n MICF performers have two options for venue hire, one of the biggest festival costs for any comedian.<\/p>\n The first is to apply and hope to be accepted for a festival-managed venue (FMV). These change year to year but often include the most central arts venues like Town Hall and Max Watts.<\/p>\n How Bron Lewis went from dingy bars to hosting a MICF gala<\/a><\/p>\n The crimson-haired comedian has gone from tiny open mics to the biggest stage in Melbourne in just a few short years.<\/p>\n But despite providing more tech and general production support, FMVs are not always the most viable option, as Preston and Cavanagh found out when they first approached MICF for an In Pour Taste run.<\/p>\n “[The shows in previous years] had gone really well and they said the deposit was $49,000 for eight shows to do it at a corporate hotel venue,” Cavanagh says.<\/p>\n The other option is for comedians to locate their own venue and hope to cut a reasonable deal with the owners.<\/p>\n But money isn’t the only concern for some comics who must sort out their own stage.<\/p>\n As a wheelchair user in a city of venues with spindly staircases, locking down a venue adds another layer of difficulty for Hunter.<\/p>\n “A lot of the festival-managed venues are the accessible spaces, so the hubs, the trades halls, the town halls,” he says.<\/p>\n “I have given some feedback to the festival saying you absorb a lot of accessible venues, which is great; as the festival body, you want to be able \u2026 [to provide] accessible spaces for audience members.<\/p>\n “But as a performer, if I don’t get an FMV, regardless of cost or whether it’s financially viable, my options for venues become very, very limited.”<\/p>\n Hunter’s self-produced non-FVM $150-a-night rate for his 2026 venue is considered a steal. His 2024 venue cost him $280 a night, with an independent production company taking $5.50 out of every ticket sold.<\/p>\n Hunter had to take his 2024 deal as it was one of the only venues that could accommodate his requirements.<\/p>\n “It was this hotel conference room on Flinders Street, 120 seats. I have no business being a 120-seater, but it was the only accessible option,” he says.<\/p>\n “I had to take it because I wanted to perform. It’s my passion, my hobby, my love.”<\/p>\n So Hunter took the deal, performing for 14 nights straight. Because he had engaged an independent production company, he was guaranteed to see some amount of settlement.<\/p>\n “For two weeks’ work, I \u2026 got paid $200. Then you had to factor in all of the costs that I spent. I lost between $4,000 and $5,000 that year.”<\/p>\n With a brand new baby at the time (who’s now two and a half), Hunter says it marked the first time following his passion seemed unviable.<\/p>\n “When I was pre-kids, you could somehow justify in your warped creative arts head that spending $5,000 a year, $4,000 a year is viable because you’ve got the capacity to do that,” he says.<\/p>\n “So that was a moment for me. I was like, ‘I’d rather not perform than take a bad deal.'”<\/p>\n For some comedians, financial support comes in the form of select grants like the Victorian government’s Stand Up!<\/a> initiative, which funds shows from female and non-binary emerging comedians to the tune of $5,000.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2119e2f46ca15a9eb920cdcb483e07ac.jpeg\")
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