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Mostly (Just) Comedy (Giving).

For the second time in a year, I've turned to JustGiving to help me through a financial plight; last time it was to contribute to the funding-hole left for Edinburgh when my dad's estate was frozen after he passed away; this time, it's to bolster Mostly Comedy through the coronavirus situation.

Like so many industries, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown live events into crisis. Suddenly, the future of venues & gigs looks worryingly unsustainable. Sadly, that's the case for Mostly Comedy too.

Glyn and I run the club as self-employed performers on a low income. As it stands, Mostly makes just enough money to sustain each consecutive event and our running costs, but its survival relies on (1) the gigs going ahead, and (2) our taking little money from it. And when the money isn't there, we plug the gap.

Until our shows can continue, the club has no money coming in (our ticket provider holds all funds until a week after each show). Meanwhile, our running costs - including public liability insurance, venue hire, rent & utility bills for office/storage space, web renewal and mailing list subs - keep going out. I've already put over £2000 of my own money in the kitty since January to cushion a difficult start to the year, but my low income makes this unsustainable longterm. It would only take a few months for us to fold.

Thankfully, the people of Hitchin are troupers, and super ones at that. Since setting up the crowdfunding page on Tuesday, we've already raised enough to cover a month's closure. Our local paper, The Comet covered the story today, which should help things along. But we're not out of the woods yet. That said, we've received so many kind messages since we began raising money, which goes to show how much the club means to people. And that support means a lot to us; not bad going for a little social experiment that we started on a whim back in 2008. 

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