Sharam Namdarian Starts a Revolution
COMEDY PODCAST.
A podcast where we rant on what ever is in the mind of comedian Sharam Namdarian. We are going to accidentally start a Revolution.
We are going to start a REVOLUTION but we do not have a cause.
GUESTS | DUMB TOPICS | BIG LAUGHS.
WE GOT BIG GUESTS COMING STAY TUNED.
Sharam Namdarian Starts a Revolution
How much money did I LOSE during the Melbourne Comedy Festival?
THE MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FESTIVAL IS OVER (and great, don't get me wrong) but I bit off way more than I could chew during it.
In this COLD HARD FAX REVEAL I reveal how much money did I lose during the festival. What a wild ride it was.
THE PARTS:
00:00 The Introduction
04:22 Part 1: The Dream
10:53 Part 2: The Math
16:34 Part 3: The Existential Crisis
20:10 Part 4: Would I do it again.
Some algorithm text, read it or don't, it is up to you:
$redacted. That's the exact price tag of my comedy festival dream. After two years of performing at smaller venues outside Melbourne's CBD, I was determined to go big—securing the Doubletree Hilton opposite Flinders Street Station for my show "From Brunswick With Love." The location was perfect, the time slot ideal, and the potential to make $30,000 if I sold out every night seemed worth the gamble.
Reality hit hard when I tallied up the costs: $400 for festival registration, $700 wasted on ineffective Facebook ads, $260 for tech support, $168 for parking, $1,600 in venue deposits, and an additional $670 payment when ticket sales fell short. Despite performing for over 100 people throughout the run, the financial math was brutal and unforgiving.
What I discovered was far more valuable than the money lost. Post-COVID audiences were emerging from "lockdown brain" but still feeling the pressure of rising living costs. They weren't willing to take chances on solo performers without followings, instead hedging their bets on lineup shows or established names. My experience confirmed what veterans had warned me about—location and timing matter far less than audience development and show packaging.
The pressure of trying to fill that 120-seat room made me a better comedian, forcing me to elevate my game. But more importantly, it clarified what comedy truly is: not prestigious venues or perfect time slots, but one person with a microphone connecting authentically with an audience. Would I do it all again? Yes—but very differently, with a smaller venue and much less financial pressure. Sometimes you need to chase the glittering dream to discover that the real magic was in the simpler approach all along.
Subscribe to join my revolution that stands for absolutely nothing, and follow my journey as I continue chasing comedy dreams—just with better math next time.
Send me Fan Mail! It could be anything, we are desperate at this point.
How much money did I lose during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival of 2025? In this episode of Sharam Namdarian Starts a Revolution, we are going to find out. This is the podcast where I, sharam Namdarian, start a revolution without any cause, reason, rhyme or purpose, whether it is intentional or international. We haven't figured that out yet. Isn't it good to stand for nothing? Fantastic, now that we've got the premise of the whole podcast out of the way. This is crazy.
Sharam Namdarian:The Comedy Festival was an expensive experience and I want to sort of talk about how much money did I spend. It's not really about spending. It's about how much money did I lose during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival parts. So the first part is what is the dream? So what was the original idea? What was the outcome? What was the things that were at stake? You know what could have happened. What did I want to happen?
Sharam Namdarian:Part two is the cold hard, semi-soft math. So what I'm going to be talking about are the numbers, the numbers of expenditure, the numbers of what I actually spent money on, but these are going to be 95% accurate, so not 100% accurate, just because, roughly off the top of my head, I don't quite know the things like the exact numbers off the top of my head, but I do know the 95% ballpark. So we're going to be including things like photography. We're going to be including things like venue hire. We're going to be including things like photography. We're going to be including things like venue hire. We're going to be including things like what do you call it? Texts. We're going to be including things like parking. So when we look at that and it all adds up, it'll be this oh shit, okay, that's crazy. And how much money did you actually earn? Whoa, this ain't the podcast of how much money did I, um, earn during the comedy festival? No, no, no. If you want that, go to someone else. This is the podcast of how much money did I lose during the melbourne international comedy festival. That is a far more exciting and more realistic premise. Now the yeah, so we do the maths. After that is the existential spiral, where I me, shahram Namdarian looks at those semi-soft numbers and have the existential breakdown. We all know that I should be having Now four. Would I do it again? Bah, we'll cross that bridge. We'll cross that bridge later on.
Sharam Namdarian:The first thing I do want to say, though, is this podcast, this episode, has no hate for anyone. I know some people might be thinking straight off the bat oh shit, he's shitting on this person or shitting on that person. No, I have no hate for anyone or anything that I've encountered along the way. I love the comedy festival. I am at a phase where I do need to branch out and see other festivals. You know what I mean. Like, do the other things right. But ever since I was a young warthog, I looked at the festival and I was like, wow, that's so cool. That was the goal and look, I've done it. I've achieved that dream Now, and I've achieved it multiple times. So let's achieve other dreams Venue, hire, all that stuff. All the people I've worked with love them all. Do not. This is not a hate. There is no hate here. There is no hate, there is only love. And I'm only saying that because people are afraid of talking about numbers sometimes and often that can have a jarring, uh emotional reaction. So you know, like, watch any tv show. No tv show ever talks about how much money uh is ever. How much do they pay you? A lot, a lot, you know, because a lot means to different people. So you know like, um, where you are financially might be a different thing, and there's definitely some beautiful lessons I've learned along the way.
Sharam Namdarian:So, with act four, where we talk about, would I do it again? Holy, hella, moly. I got so much to say. But first of all, let's talk about the dream me, sharon, madarin, the comedy festival in 2025. What was the dream? Now, let's to tell you what the dream was in the present tense, which is technically the past. Now, as of recording this, we need to go even further back into the past, which is technically further back in the past. Um, this is my third comedy festival. Now I'm gonna say this is obviously it's the one where I'm most qualified to perform at the festival. Um, but that sentence is never not going to be mute, because next year I'll be more qualified that qualified than I am now.
Sharam Namdarian:The first one, the first show, was called horny and depressed and I held it at ubq on smith street when it was in its slightly other location. Uh, in collingwood now, if you don't know where that is, in melbourne, if you're not from melbourne. Love that, love that, love that we. It's slightly north of the city. The next one was in a beautiful location called Club Voltaire, if you do not know it. Great, great location, great people, great everything, everything there. Great, great, great, great, great. North of the city, in North Melbourne, opposite from the Comics Lounge, a huge comedy club in Melbourne, and again out of the city huge comedy club in Melbourne and again out of the city. Now, did I have walk-ins for either venue? No, I did not, and I've learned why.
Sharam Namdarian:I had my theories about why that's the case, and it's post-mortem. Not because of location, but at. I wanted to have a comedy show that was at a good location in a good time, and the definition of good location was in the CBD, somewhere, the Melbourne business, the central business district in Melbourne. So that's again, if you're not in Melbournebourne, it's basically what we call downtown or whatever. Um and uh, in the cbd in melbourne, at a good location, so somewhere in the city that was easy to central to, um, the central part of the festival. So that's the melbourne town hall on swanson street. Um, at a good time. So preferably not at a time where people are going to be uh, tired as time. So preferably not at a time where people are going to be tired as all hell, and preferably not at a time that I then would be tired as all hell.
Sharam Namdarian:And so, through the connections and through the things, I managed to wrangle the venue, which is the Doubletree Hilton opposite Flinders Street Station, at 7.40pm. Oh, fantastic location, oh, fantastic time. For those people not in Melbourne, flinders Street is like one of the central streets in Melbourne. Flinders Street Station is one of the central stations in Melbourne. There's Melbourne Central, which you'd think is the central station, but there's two Flinders Street and, yeah, so it's opposite Flinders Street Station. Good location, good time, fantastico, let's-a do it.
Sharam Namdarian:That was basically the whole thing. Like I just I wanted that to happen. Now here, thing, like I, just I wanted that to happen. Now here's the catch. Oh, you ready for the catch? Uh, twice as expensive off the top of my head than, say, voltaire. Twice as expensive, but Voltaire fits around 50 people. This space fits 120 people. That is a lot of people. Now, the ticket price of $25 a head. From the rough takings I could have made if I sold out every single show, I could have made 30, 30 000. That's a lot of coconuts 30 000. Now, the festival itself in order to be I just nodded myself, sorry the festival itself, in order to be a part of it, costs around four hundred dollars, the. The space itself costs around four thousand dollars. Now if I could make thirty thousand dollars, the, the, the dice have been rolled. I accepted it all. I accepted the challenge.
Sharam Namdarian:I have experience in marketing, but what I do not have what I do not have is a following. I do not have a following. I do not have a group of people that I can say, hey, I'm playing it this time, let's go. That is what I do not have. So I am, dare I say, raw dogging it, and that's why I'm doing this podcast. Shonderdarn Starts a Revolution where I can create some revolutionaries like yourself, where we fight for nothing. That's why I'm going to be doing more sketches, things like that. You'll see me posting more and more online.
Sharam Namdarian:I do not have comedic followers, so I really wanted to sort of get it to this point where okay, I think maybe I had something to prove to myself like, oh, you can do it without people following you, you know, just to prove I'm good at marketing or that other people are wrong. It's all fucking pretend realistically. So the dream was to make it work. Now, I had many people tell me afterwards, a lot of people have had the idea that I've had. I'm not alone to be like here's a huge venue, I'm gonna how am I gonna fill it? I'm the only one dumb enough to have done it. No, not, actually. I. Actually I think I'm special. I know so many people who have done enough to have done what I've done. I know so many people. I'm not going to name them, but if you think it's you, it's probably you. Let's be honest. So that was the dream Act. One was the dream act. One was the dream trying to basically get this, I get it off the ground, to make money or to dare I say, at the very least, break even. That was the. The financial dream. The actual, like the comedic dream was deliver a good show. Like. I had faith in the content the joke, sorry. I had faith in the idea. The show was called From Brunswick With Love, which was this idea, that it was meant to be this existential crisis. But at the same time, maybe I'll appeal to people who live in Brunswick Great Acts 2.
Sharam Namdarian:The Math oh shit. Answer it. Great ax2. The math oh shit. Are you ready to experience the math? Okay, so in this part we're talking about the cold, hard math of it all and I'm going to be doing some calculations at the same time, so if I can put my microphone in a weird way, um, as we've said before, this is soft math. Okay.
Sharam Namdarian:So how much does it cost to register for the festival? I can't remember off the top of my head, but I'm going to say it's around $400. How much did I spend on Facebook ads alone? Around $700. Shit, that's a lot of kahunas. Do you know why I spent $700 on Facebook ads? It's because I'm a dummy. I tried doing Facebook ads way before the festival. Uh, I tried doing facebook ads way before the festival and, um, I have now learned that if you are ever going to do ads, do it like two weeks before, don't do it several months before. All right, I've now. That was an expensive learning experience. I've now learned it. Uh, anyone who's watching this seriously, just do it a couple weeks beforehand. You do not. If you have $700 to spend on ads, hypothetically like just save it all, hit a higher concentration potentially. Again, I do not have a big following to target retarget stuff like that, so I'm raw dog on Facebook ads.
Sharam Namdarian:We have, uh, the tech support for the whole festival. Uh, roughly 100 and 200 and 260 dollars. Uh, that's what I spent on uh, on uh, two guys who really helped me out. Um, it's not a lot of money. You know, there's festival pass, whatever, there's other ways of whatever. So so far we have the, the uh, the festival registration. We have the uh facebook ads and we have the text. Let me just write that down so I can remember that. So I got fest reg, we've got facebook adverts, we've got text, okay. So that's already a bit of kahunas.
Sharam Namdarian:Now we have parking. So parking roughly, I would say, equated to an average of $12 a night, mostly because there were some days where I paid more and there were also some days, like public holidays, where I paid nothing. So I'm just going to say average, it was $12 a night. So that's 12 times 14 equals what is that? That's 12 times 14. Someone had me at $168, $168 a parking. That's more than I expected. And then we have the final, the takings, so okay. So you might be thinking, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all right. So then we have deposits for the venue. So that was $900 times two, so that's $1,600, yeah, so we have the takings from the venue, so the deposits from the venue. So first we got I'll just I'll run through it all at the end Deposits from the venue, that was, two $900 payments, and then, finally, we have the taking.
Sharam Namdarian:So this is how much money did I earn? Now, the final thing was was that there was so obviously there's the deposits was one thousand six hundred dollars, and then the rest of the money for the venue would be taken from tickets, and then anything left over would be mine. Yeah, so, but what happens though? Here's the question what happens if I don't make the money back? Well, you better believe that's what happened. I serviced comedically over a hundred people, but it was not enough money to pay the venue back, so it ended up being a difference of around six, like plus GST, and the GST was like ah shit, didn't think of that was around $670.
Sharam Namdarian:So how much did I? So first we've got festival registration, which is $400. Facebook ads $700. Text $260. Parking $168. Deposits for the venue $1,600. And then takings. So you'd think takings is like taking away. I actually paid $670. So what's the total? So it's $400 plus $700, plus $260, plus 1600 plus 67. Are you ready to find out how much money did I lose during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival? 3630, $3630. Zero, three thousand six hundred and thirty dollars less than I thought.
Sharam Namdarian:So this is part three. Part three existential crisis. Three thousand six hundred and thirty dollars, $3,630. Oh, frankly, I thought it was $4,000, plus I am broke. I am broke, I am Whoa. Okay, it's good for me to know the exact number, or like, again, the soft number, like give or take $100 or $200. When you're in the $3,630 mark, an extra $100 won't? The maths is fine, whoa, yeah, that was an expensive experience. Part four is would I do it again? Because I can tell you straight up I already know the answer to that. But this is part three, the existential spiral. If I had $3,630 right now, I would feel very financially, emotionally, stable.
Sharam Namdarian:I've talked about this before on the podcast, where I myself have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew just because I'm used to telling myself I'm bad at chewing. Again. Love the venues, love the people. There are people who operated in the same venue. They sold out almost every single night. Shit, yeah, fantastic, love that for them.
Sharam Namdarian:Uh, yeah, okay, oh, I'm scared about putting this out, just in case it has some negative ramifications. To be honest, I'm scared venues will look at this and be like he talks about the finances. We've got to keep it a secret. It's like, dude, you can just ask people, you just ask anyone. Anyone will tell you there's no contract that says you can't talk about the finances during the festival. It's, um, I've got to get a following. I gotta get, I gotta get so funny that that number isn't a fear anymore. Oh Okay, look, oh okay, look. We're gonna get into part four, because I have some stuff to say about this part four.
Sharam Namdarian:Would I do it again? Part four, uh, short answer, long answer yes and no. Yes, I will all, not always, but as long as I'm in town, I would do it again. But would I do it exactly the same? Hell, no, I financially do not have currently, from my current position, the financial space to sort of to throw this much money willy-nilly at a thing and not do it smarter. I think being financially limited is itself good, because you get to be creative with money. Uh, that's where I'm at. So you know, like I think I had the money to throw at it. Now I don't have the money to throw at it because I'm telling you I wish like the 3630 would be so good right now, you know, but it did.
Sharam Namdarian:Look, I went for the slam dunk and I got slam punked. I got slam dunked. So here's what I learned. So the whole thing, would I do it again? Right, would I do this again? Oh my God, would I do it again? I think what I wanted was the experience, the experience of the good time, the good location, the venue, prestigious venue, fantastic, fantastic, um, but would I do that again? I think I have the prestige now. I I got what I needed from that venue, like I ate the sandwich, I got the space. Would I do that venue again? Only if I knew I could fill those numbers and then, potentially at a smaller nut, at a smaller scale, that's realistically what it would be.
Sharam Namdarian:I learned so much during the festival. At the same time we ran Best of Underground Comedy at Dirty Secrets Comedy. We sold out, not almost every single night, but quite consistently, two shows a night, two, three shows a night. That was right down opposite the road from UBQ on Smith Street, right down opposite the road from ubq on smith street. So what I learned this year was that the last couple years, sure, cost of living was increasing so people have less money to spend, but I do genuinely believe that with the. I don't know the way the internet's been going recently. Internet lift your fucking game. You know, um, with trump just being online all the time and suddenly the internet's boring, hollywood's not making any things. I think people were craving entertainment. So the festival this year overall, I think, was fantastic. Everyone had a great like. Not everyone, but a lot of people I spoke to during the festival had a great time.
Sharam Namdarian:Location was more irrelevant than it's ever been. I think the first year I ever participated. So the year before I started doing comedy and I participated in the festival, I heard that was a really good one. I think that was like we just sort of come out of lockdowns, things like that. So people were ready and primed. Then, the first year that I participated in the festival, I think what happened was was most people were having a an okay time, but not the greatest time. So like, uh, we were still suffering from maybe uh things with like COVID sort of lockdowns, things like that. Like we didn't have lockdowns anymore but we had. We had like lockdown brain, you know. Then after that, uh, a lot of people had a bad time. I genuinely do believe, with the cost of living higher and lockdown brain, we're finally resolving those issues.
Sharam Namdarian:It was, like you can see, that people were going out less this year. I think we got over our lockdown brain as a group of people, but cost of living is higher. So overall, people were going out. People were going to shows, but they weren't going to crazy new experimental shows. They were going to shows realistically, what they were always going to, which was shows where they could hedge their bets. So shows like lineup shows, shows where it's a double act, things like that, if it's a solo show, the bets are a bit more wild and looser. So if it's a solo show, the bets are um a bit more wild and looser. So you know like, if it's a shit show, you're stuck in a room for an hour, but if it's a double act, at least it's only half. Like you got twice the chance of being good. If it's five people, you got like, okay, it's uh. You know like if they're shit, they're gone in 10 minutes. So you hedge your bets. So, realistically, all the lineup shows did fantastic. All the solo shows did all right if they had a following.
Sharam Namdarian:So I learned this festival that maybe what I was thinking about, where it was like good location, good time was actually sort of irrelevant to where it was at, it's more the good location. Yeah. So it's like what I learned is packaging. Packaging makes the thing right. So, voltaire, beautiful location, such a amazing uh room. It's velvet, it's soft, it's it feels this fun elevated vibe. You go in there, you feel elevated and it helps and supports that. And i've've started to realize like, okay, so in this space, yeah, so I could have if I ran my show at Dirty or a significantly cheaper venue where the potential to make money and stuff was significantly less but the potential to, you know, just do I'm going to say very honestly, dumpster fire comedy, just comedy at its core, which is just a person with a microphone talking to a bunch of people who don't have a microphone.
Sharam Namdarian:I realized and you've seen the start if you watched the episode with Ashfield, I mean, where he sort of gave me a rant that like people in Melbourne often like put the festival on this big pedestal and they get it in their heads Like this is the thing, this is the thing we should be doing, because we don't sort of like, we're like we're looking at the fruit in the trees. We're not actually thinking about growing the trees, I can tell you I probably was caught up in that that there is glitz and there is glam to the festival, but the festival at its core is just people telling other people jokes. And maybe next year you'll see me in a significantly smaller room, not because I'm broke, mostly because I'm broke, mostly because I'm broke, but also because, to me, I've realized like that's it, all of this extra stuff that we put on it, the glitz, the glam style, style of performance, comes down. It's all extra and at the core of it it's just two people, like one person performing and a group of people listening. Dude, sometimes not even a group of people, sometimes one person, sometimes other comedians, depending on where you're at.
Sharam Namdarian:So would I do it again? I think I don't need to do it again. I think that's really what I'm trying to say here. I don't need to do it again. I think that's really what I'm trying to say here. I don't need to do it again. I got what I needed out of this one.
Sharam Namdarian:You know, once I experienced the glitz and the glam of a great venue, great location, great time, my cup-eth runneth full. Now I can be like, yeah, I would also have more breaks. I did two weeks straight in a row. That was rough as guts. You need a break. You need at least, like, start on the Monday, have the Tuesday off or start on the Tuesday whatever. Like, like, don't do Mondays. I think that's an easy way of saying it. Just don't do Mondays. Monday crowds are rough anyway because everyone's like it's a Monday and you're like you got to deal with that too. That's fine, whatever.
Sharam Namdarian:But it is like the whole journey was a very expensive learning experience, but I learned so much out of it. Did I learn $3,600 and 30 things out of it? Experience points out of it. You better believe I did. You know I was saying I spent $700 on Facebook adverts by the time we got to the festival.
Sharam Namdarian:The freaking out about the numbers itself made me a better comedian, because I'm like if I got to fill this space, I've got to be able to fill that space. I got so much better, so much more calmer. So yeah, should you do crazy big ass stunts, man, if you can afford it maybe. All I know is is that I need to touch some fucking grass and be more connected with what comedy really is. The glitz, the glam, all that extra stuff is extra. It's the stuff that comes as a side effect from just doing spots, writing jokes, getting out there, meeting people. The real thing, though and I will say this over and over again, and I say this to so many people it's amazing how much just trying to write jokes solves comedy problems, like I've realized like the premise of the show could have been better, the idea behind it, all the jokes, everything could be better. I'm probably never going to be happy with that, and I think that's great, because that means I'm always striving for more.