Sunday afternoon in Kansas City, 100-odd degrees, no wind, and I’m standing in a tent with a microphone doing a comedy quiz I’ve done a hundred versions of before. I ask a question, and instead of barrelling into the punchline behind it, I wait. Half a second, maybe less.
The laugh was bigger. I hadn’t done anything differently except leave a gap.
That’s what this weekend gave me, and it didn’t come from the quiz. It came from eight minutes on a stage the night before with nothing to hide behind.
How I ended up in Missouri
Kansas City. KC. Missouri, not Kansas, a distinction they’ll correct you on before your bag hits the ground. Barbecue, jazz, fountains, the first stadium in the world built for a professional women’s soccer team, and more recently Ted Lasso. They also have an Irish Fest every Labour Day weekend, and every year they quietly hope the weather might turn a bit more Irish. Cool air. A soft drizzle. Something to justify the Aran jumper.
This year it was 105 in the shade and even the fountains had no mist to spare.
The other factor was paperwork. Recent immigration policy meant several acts from home couldn’t get visas sorted in time, so the organisers went looking for an Irishman already standing on this side of the Atlantic. My phone rang. Comedy quiz, yes, and as a bonus, opening act doing stand alone stand-up!
I was down I-35 so fast I barely registered the 453 miles of Iowa corn on either side of the rental.
Friday: the room does the work
Culture Tent, the evening I landed. I’d written questions I genuinely found interesting — Irish history, traditions, the stories behind the bands, on the principle that if the writing doesn’t entertain me it won’t entertain anyone.
The crowd assembled like an IKEA table. Slowly at first, a few wrong turns and confused expressions, but eventually everything nestled into place. By round three they’d stopped competing with me and started competing with each other, which is the exact moment a quiz stops being a quiz and starts being a night out. That part I know how to do. That part I’ve known how to do for twenty years.
Saturday: eight minutes with nothing to hide behind
The posters featured Paddy McDonnell, the headliner, and precisely none of me, which suited me fine. Green room, easy chat with Paddy about home and life and the road. Then Ronan Collins, the Dubliner who booked the show, stuck his head in to say we had a full house.
I walked out and opened with a question.
“Anyone here from Ireland?”
Silence. Expected that.
“Anyone here with Irish heritage?”
Every hand in the building went up. Expected that too.
And there it was — the whole room, in one gesture, telling me exactly who they were. So I spent the next few minutes on the difference between being Irish and being Irish Irish, and a full house of people who had just raised their hands laughed at themselves for the length of it. Nobody was being got at. They were in on it.
Here’s what a stage teaches you that a quiz never will. A quiz always has another question coming – structure to lean on, a format to carry you. A stage gives you nothing but the silence you’ve either earned or haven’t. You find out very quickly whether you’re comfortable in it.
I was booked to do it again an hour later. Second time I breathed it in deeper, trusted the preparation, and let the gaps sit.
Sunday: back to the tent, different host
New crowd, and a few repeat faces from Friday, the highest compliment an audience can pay you. I’d spent part of Saturday rewriting questions in case that happened, which also kept me honest.
But the change wasn’t the material. It was the timing. Taking a beat instead of rushing the quip. Letting a room have its moment rather than filling it. Reading the pause instead of fearing it.
The festival ended early: lightning, thunder and biblical rain, with musicians and dancers gathering indoors for impromptu sessions that enchanted everyone who saw them. A fitting finish.
I drove home with something I didn’t leave with. Not a new act. A sharper instinct for the room and the room is the whole job.
Let’s create something your audience won’t stop talking about. Reach out today to book John Cosgrove or to learn more about customizing an experience for your event.
