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Name of Intervarsity
Battle of the Five Societies: Stand-up Comedy Intervarsity’s
Name of Society
UL Comedy Society
College
University of Limerick
Please provide a brief description of the event.
Include if this was a new event, if not how did it improve on last year. Did you face any challenges,
What you were most proud off.
Battle of the Five Societies: Stand-up Comedy Intervarsity’s was a three-hour stand-up comedy
event featuring the best performers from each of Ireland's top four stand-up comedy societies.
Three comedians from each society did 5 min of their best stand-up comedy material to a packed
house at the Scholars Club on the University of Limerick campus. There have been attempts in the
past by other universities to host stand-up comedy at of Aristides however all of these have proved
to be unsuccessful and this event was created in the hopes to bring together different Societies and
colleges with the same passion and humour.borrowed very little elements from those attempts so
for all intents and purposes and this was a new event. Organising the event had many challenge,
from organising a time and date that can suit five different comedy societies (a new way GE (who
are GE? Explain full name) were also supposed to take part as the fifth society however have to
back out on the day of the event for unforeseen reasons) was incredibly difficult. The structure of
our terms and examinations all seems to vary and to find a period where none of us were under
considerable exam stress proved stressful in itself. It's hard to single out one element that I am
most proud of; as the night itself was thee proudest moment I have had in my three years with the
UL comedy Society. I was proud of the standard and professionalism of all the acts that came on
the night providing fantastic entertainment for all the supporters who came out of the show, I am
proud of the overwhelming support we received as evidenced by the amazing turnout and the
respect our audience showed all the comedians on the night and I am proud to be a part of what
seems to be the beginning of a lot more interconnectivity between the comedy societies of Ireland.
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1. Describe the competitive element and who the winners were.
There was a very strong competitive element to the event. The three comedians representing each
society were voted to represent their society by their own society members. Then when we came to
the event itself we wanted to make sure that the judging system was as unbiased and fair as
possible. The president of each society would act as the judging representative of their University.
These judges would then mark each individual act with the score ranging from 1 to 10 in each of
the following five categories; joke riding, stage presence, audience reaction, likeability and overall
funniness. Judges did not score comedians from their own society so each comedian score was
judged by the three judges from the opposing societies. Individual winners first, second and third
would be determined by their total score and then a collective society winner would be decided by
the greatest combined score by the comedians of each University. All societies agreed that this was
the fairest and most conclusive way of deciding the winners. While there were no physical prizes
up for grabs within the stand-up comedy circuit competition titles hold a surprising amount of
weight and everybody going in knew that the winner and runners-up would be looking forward to a
significant boost in their bookings in the coming months.Ian Lynam of Trinity came 3rd, Luke
Hughesof UCD came 2nd and John Spillane of UL came 1st. UL was also very fortunate to win the
overall Society award!
2. How many were involved in the event
Include number on the organising committee, how many attended from each college, additional
attendees eg audience.
On the organising committee there were 10 people involved. These were the five presidents of the
respective societies, the public relations officer for UL comedy Society, the events officer for UL
comedy Society, the treasurer for UL comedy Society and the health and safety officer for UL
comedy Society. There was also attendance from Trinity College Dublin, UCC and UCD in
addition to our own supporter. Although we had no way of physically counting the attendance we
did feel the scholars club to its maximum capacity which we have been informed is roughly250. On
top of that we had ranging from 20 to 50 students outside of the scholars listening to the acts over
our courtyard PA system. The manager of the scholars remarked that it was the highest attendance
they have ever received for an event this past academic year.
3How did you fare financially?
What grant did you receive, how successful was your sponsorship/ fundraising. What was the entry
fee and what did it include. What was your overall income and expenditure?
The event was always designed to get as many eyes on the wide spectrum of talent in Irish student
comedy is possible therefore there was no entrance fee for the event. With that in mind we had to
keep costs down to an absolute minimum. The postering involved in the event cost a total of eight
Euro and that was our only expenditure involved in the event. We were able to organise all our
technical equipment by borrowing from the UL music society and utilising the equipment already
available in the scholars club.The fact that we could depend on our fellow societies for their
expertise and materials was invaluable to the event.
4 Please give details of the methods used to promote event?
How successful were you at your PR and getting other colleges involved. Tips: It is important to
detail variety of publicity methods used as well as the creativity and innovation of the publicity
utilised.
There was a tremendous amount of promotion involved in our event. As mentioned before we did
an extensive postering campaign around campus making the event very visible to those casually
walking around campus. This of course was not going to be enough to get the kind of attendance
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we felt this event was going to deserve. I myself appeared on several of ULFM’s (the University of
Limerick's own radio station) programs to promote and speak about the event. Via Facebook and
Twitter we promoted the event consistently well in advance of the show itself. We successfully
reached out to the major comedy clubs of Limerick which all agreed to promote the event for us as
well in order to reach a much broader comedy audience. We had an article detailing the event in
UL's start of semester newsletter. The scholars bar also promoted the event from their various
social media platforms and allowed extensive postering inside the bar itself. Not to mention that
our fellow comedy societies in the visiting Universities also promoted the event to their members
gaining us national exposure.
5 What would it mean to the society to win this award and why do you feel the society merits
the award?
If the UL comedy Society won this award it would be nothing short of fantastic. We are a small
society compared to many of the others within our own University, let alone Ireland as a whole.
However the event we delivered was far from small. It successfully showcased the best of young
Irish comedy talent and essentially the future of Irish comedy as a whole. It did so to an audience
that could not have been bigger or more invested in the comedy they were watching. This event
was not only a once off fantastic night but also set out the blueprint and the precedent for many
more comedy IV’s, which are already being planned. I have been a part of the UL comedy Society
for three and a half years now and when I look at how much not only our society, but the other
comedy societies of Ireland have evolved since then it is fantastic to be able to point out to one
night where all that hard work and dedication was showcased on such a public platform. To win
this award would put the comedy society on the up in the University of Limerick and highlight the
talent of our members and friends.
Include poster, brochure and at least 6 photos of your event plus links to any videos and websites.
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Links:
https://www.facebook.com/ul.comedysociety?fref
=photo
https://www.facebook.com/events/365950330259
363/
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