How to Make a Booker Actually Want You Back

Here’s the thing nobody tells you when you start comedy: getting booked is easy. Getting re-booked is the real trick. Booking a comic is like dating—bookers want someone funny, reliable, capable of handling themselves in public, and unlikely to set anything on fire.

If you can do those first three consistently, congratulations: you’re already ahead of half the green-room population.

Let’s talk about how to make a booker actually want you back.

1. Professionalism Is Hot. Be Hot.

You know what bookers love? A comic who shows up on time and doesn’t behave like a feral raccoon in the green room.

Show up early. Be polite. Don’t make the staff chase you around like you’re trying to avoid your ex. If there’s a lineup change, roll with it. If the room has rules, follow them.

Comedy is a wild art, but the business behind it is shockingly simple:
Be the easiest part of someone's night.

I promise you—bookers talk. And the “professional and pleasant” comics get more stage time than the “funny but chaotic” ones every single week.

2. Follow-Through Isn’t Boring. It’s Sexy.

If a booker asks for your promo photo, send it. If they need a bio, send it. If they need your social handle, send it. This is not the time to experiment with silence as performance art.

After the show, thank them. Tag the club when you post. Send a message the next morning saying you appreciate being included. It takes 20 seconds and it places you directly into the “Book again” folder.

Polished, reliable comics make bookers breathe easier.
And in this industry, any comic who makes a booker exhale in relief is a unicorn.

3. Don’t. Be. Weird.

This shouldn’t have to be said, yet here we are.

Weird behaviors that won’t get you rebooked:

• Cornering the booker with your existential crisis

• Flirting like you’re auditioning for a restraining order

• Getting drunker than the bachelorette party in the front row

• Giving unsolicited tags to the headliner

• Turning the green room into your personal therapy session

Be friendly. Be yourself. But don’t make people wonder if they need to hide the sharp objects around you.

Green rooms are tiny. Your energy matters.

4. Remember the Staff: They’re Your Secret Fan Club

A booker may notice you once.
A staff member notices you forever.

Tip your server. Learn names. Don’t act like the headliner’s emotional support peacock. The staff sees everything—and when they like you, they vouch for you.

If the team says, “We love when ANT comes in, he’s easy,” guess who gets asked back before the comic who left a pile of chicken-wing bones under the stool?

5. Make Their Job Easier and They’ll Make Your Career Easier

Clubs and indie rooms are busy. Bookers are juggling calendars, comics, personalities, and that one guy who keeps DMing them half-finished voice notes at 2 a.m.
So stand out by being the opposite of chaos.

Here’s the formula bookers adore:
Funny + Prepared + Great Hang + No Drama = Rebooked

That last one—no drama—is the silent golden ticket.

6. The Secret: You’re Not Just a Performer. You’re a Partner.

A booker is betting on you. They’re trusting you with their audience, their reputation, their night.
Show them you’re someone worth betting on.

Be the comic who shows up ready, delivers the goods, thanks everyone, leaves no mess, and follows up with class.
That’s how you build a reputation.
That’s how you turn a spot into a relationship.
That’s how you become the person they ask for.

Bottom line: Comedy is competitive, darling, but it’s not complicated.
If you can be talented and not a tornado of dysfunction, you will rise faster than you think.

Bookers want to root for you.
Make it easy for them.