2007-Year in review

Wow. I can't believe my last post was in April! I'm so glad I blogged about the Hali Comedy Fest, because so much has happened since then and I had actually forgotten a lot of what I blogged!

Let's look at a year in review, at least Comedy wise..... I'll do a separate post for the adoption :-)

In May, Craig and I started a new company, HaHa Comedy Promotions, and decided that Comedy was what we loved more than anything else, so we were going to make it an even bigger part of our lives!

After the Halifax Fest, we ended up connecting with Marc Sauvé. He is a majority owner and manages the Halifax and Moncton YukYuk's Clubs. We worked with him to secure some regular YukYuk's shows in Summerside for the Summer. We ended up hosting 14 shows at the Heritage Pub. Everybody chipped in-Bobbie, Jolene and Craig all showed up week after week, and we had a blast!!!!

But before the Yuk's shows started, we went to a couple of comedy shows in Halifax (remember the Comedy Explosion Shows at the Frigate? lol) where we discovered three comics who have fallen into our "Favorites" category. Peter White, Ian Black and Catherine Robertson.

Peter had been at the Halifax Fest, but the show he was in was the only one we missed. There were two comics in the fest we didn't get to see: Peter White and Dana Alexander (we STILL haven't seen Dana!). Peter, it seems, will never let me forget that I missed his show at the Fest.... lol

We also met Shane Ogden at that first show at the Frigate in Halifax. We had seen him at the Hali Fest, and he didn't really appeal to us, but the more we saw him, the more we liked him!

On May 19th, the day of the 1st Frigate Show, there was a Yuks show in the evening. The comics were Stan Thomson and Johnny Guardhouse with Ian Black MCing (I think) and Shane Ogden doing a guest spot. After the show, we all went to Bearly's (hmmmm that was my first time there, but certainly not my last, lol). We were still sneaking Bobbie into bars then, lol. She has since turned 19, so we no longer have to sneak her in...

May 19th is when we really started talking seriously about running the Island Comedy Fest. I believe we picked the dates that night... And that was the night we decided Ian and Catherine had to be part of our Fest (We wanted Peter in, as well, but he was already booked more to come on that.)

On June 2nd, it was our wedding anniversary. Ten Years! How to celebrate? With Comedy, of course! We spent the weekend in Moncton, including spending many hours with Shane Ogden and Peter White. Interestingly, we had been in contact with Shane and had made plans to go to lunch with him, but didn't feel we knew Peter well enough to invite him without making him feel uncomfortable. I remember on our way to Moncton, saying to Craig: "wouldn't it be awesome if Shane invited Peter to come with us?" . When we got to Moncton, and met Shane in the lobby of the hotel, he said:"Hey, I invited Peter, I hope that's ok" hehehe YAY! We ended up spending lunch, into dinner, into show, into drinks with them. From noon, til 3 am! Couldn't think of a better way to spend an anniversary. This is also the day Peter advised he was unavailable on the dates of our Festival, as he, Shane Ogden and John Sheehan were doing an Ontario Tour then. :-(

Our 1st Yuk's show in Summerside was June 6th. Todd Drinkle, Cedric Newman and Jean Paul were there. It was an amazing show!

Right after the show, Craig and I left for Ottawa, where we would spend a week, and be back in time for the next Yuk's show, a week later :-)

We made an appointment with Howie Wagman and Kathleen O'Brien from Ottawa Yuk's who handle the festival work for Yuk's/Funny Business. So on Friday June 8th, we went to the Ottawa yuk's club, where we saw Ben Miner, Dave McConnell, David Tsonos and Scott Faulconbridge. That's the night we decided Scott HAD to be at our Festival... He said he would be interested. We also had a very productive meeting with Howie and Kathleen.

Next night, we hit Absolute Comedy where we saw Massimo MCing with Todd Reed, Dan Biggam and Mike Storck (There was another lady there whose name I have down as Brenda Reed, butI think I got her name wrong). That night we invited Mike Storck to the Fest.

While in Ottawa, MySpace anounced a secret MySpace show on June 10th, in Toronto. No tickets available in advance, you had to go wait in line and hope to get in. Hmmmm. I wouldn't normally have, but there's more.... It was RUSSELL PETERS! I HAD to go. I booked a train ticket. Saturday night, after the show at Absolute Comedy, I didn't sleep. Went back to my Brother's place and we stayed up until I had to catch my ride to the train Station. I emailed Dan Nainan, who had toured with Russell Peters for a year and a half, and told him about the silly thing I was about to do.

I waited in line for hours, but made new friends: Maria, Rick and Samuel. Halfway through the afternoon, I called Simon Rakoff. I had promised I would call him while I was there. My call waiting told me someone else was calling, but I figured I'd let it go to voicemail. When I finally checked the message, turns out it was Russell Peters!!!! Dan had texted him and told him I was taking the train to get to the show and asking him to make sure I got in!!! He said he'd call me back half an hour later! By the time he called back, I had made it in, so all was good, but we chatted for a bit,which was really cool.

The show was awesome and after the show, we (Maria, Rick, Samuel and I) went back in, to see Jean Paul, who was one of the acts on the show (he had done our 1st Yuk's show in Summerside). There were other greats there: Kenny Robinson, who I didn't even approach because I was so intimidated (and kicked myself in the butt for afterwards, but HE eventually contacted ME on MySpace and we've been able to chat a bit since then) and guys like Gavin Stephens (who I didn't know before then, but now adore). While we were there, Russell came out as well. I introduced myself to him. Then I got my pic taken with him in what has become known as the "Hug MamaPimp pose", which I have with a bunch of comics :-)

While we were in Ottawa, we also found out about the St John's Comedy Fest in Nfld. We decided to attend. So at the end of June, we headed out to Nfld to see this awesome Festival. They really did an amazing job of pulling it all together. Mark Critch, Cathy Jones, Irwin Barker, Shaun Majumder, Steve Patterson, Gavin Crawford, Lorne Elliot and Erica Sigurdson were there, along with Snook! We spoke to Irwin and Erica about our Fest and they were interested. Steve asked to come, lol. Said he'd do anything. He'd even MC. lol We were delighted he was so keen on it because he is phenomenal. We love Steve :-)

The rest of the Summer seems like a bit of a blur sometimes. Saw lots of Comedy, met lots of comics, got a lot of them drunk, lol.

We hosted the Canadian Unity Tour in July. Daryl Makk, Andrew Evans, Levi MacDougall, Jason Blanchard and Johnny Legend all slept at our house, on air mattresses and couches! They are awesome people. We absolutely adore every one of them!

In August, we produced our first show: Steve Patterson, with special guest Peter White. It was such an amazing show!

In September, we went to Ottawa for some Festival meetings, and were there at the same time as Steve Patterson. We met Joanna Downey, and Wafik Nasralla.

I also went to Ottawa in October, where I saw Wafik Nasralla again, and saw and met Heidi Foss and Mike Bullard, as well as Derek Lengwenus and Dave Merheje.

During all of this time, we were preparing for the 1st Ever Island Comedy Fest...

The Comedy Fest ran from the 6th to the 10th of November It was phenomenal! It was not as well attended as we had hoped, but it was still a wonderful festival. We put on 10 shows,with 25 comics!!! It was fantastic! Each one of them put on an awesome show. The Best part is that Kim Hendrickson, who runs the Halifax Comedy Fest, came to our Festival!!! We ended up putting together a showcase for her, of some of our atlantic talent (which you, will soon find out, has benefitted at least one comic!) and she attended our Giggles and Vittles show. She brought some people from the Investor's Group, and a CBC Producer!

Unfortunately, I was involved in a Motor Vehicle Accident accident on the Friday of the Festival, just before the last three shows. But I still made it to the shows! And they went off without a hitch! I'm just really cheesed off that I missed most of the Friday shows because of the pain killers I was on. At least we have video of Saturday's show :-)

Since the Festival, I have had the wonderful opportunity to see, meet and get to know Mike MacDonald and Nikki Payne. I even got to watch Mike MacDonald on Just For Laughs on Tv, sitting next to...Mike MacDonald!

It's been such a remarkable year. I saw 84 comedy shows in 2007. I met the most incredible people. I made connections with great new friends. It has truly been a year to remember...

How can 2008 EVER top THAT? We'll see...

(Oh, and about our 2007 New Year's resolution to put PEI on the map? Done!) On to a new year!!!