Why Do I Work for Myself?... by Dan Quinn
A variety of factors have led to me working for myself –– fluke, skill and wanting to pursue the things that made me happy. I started stand-up in ‘93 and was following the path of most comics: Do amateur night, work your way up to paid spots, middling, and eventually headlining. I was pretty certain I knew the path to success, and it was coming together as I expected.
In 1999 I was invited to do the Canadian comedy competition at Just For Laughs and won. It was at a time during comedy festivals when everyone was getting deals. I signed with one of the big four agencies in LA and was hip-pocketed by management companies. I was in talks for a development deal with ABC and WBTV. After several meetings, I was near closing a deal with ABC. Disney bought ABC earlier that year and was in the process of merging two offices into one. During the transition, everyone was to take a few weeks holiday. I returned to Canada and waited for the phone call that my agent assured me was just a formality.
A month went by before we heard back. My agent called me with the news. “Bad news,” he said. “Who Wants to be a Millionaire is the number one show on TV and ABC is cancelling the comedy development sched.” I guess he didn’t have time to say schedule.
That was the end of the comedy deal. The comedy industry as a whole took a huge step backwards. They stopped giving deals out to comedians. Sitcoms were no longer the rage and Reality TV was taking over.
I spent pilot season in LA that year but never really came close to booking. There weren’t many comedies being filmed and I was running out of money. I returned to Canada and back to the circuit. I was at a low point personally and comedically. Comedy was becoming my profession and not my passion. I was no longer writing new jokes and was losing the enjoyment of being on stage. I had started booking some of my own shows. The shows did okay but a chain of comedy clubs kept threatening to fire me. After that, there really wasn’t anywhere else to go.
I moved to LA in 2005, but the scene was dead and nothing was happening for me there. I would regularly go back to Vancouver to visit my friends and do gigs in Canada. I started snowboarding and fell in love with it. While I was snowboarding I never thought about my career and just enjoyed the experience playing in the snow.
After a couple of years in LA, playing to sparse crowds of mostly other comics waiting to get onstage, I was starting to feel really lonely. I missed my friends and my life back in Vancouver. LA is a lonely place when all you think about is your career instead of the life you could be living.
I decided to move back to Vancouver. I booked a gig in Whistler for the Friday I returned. A couple of my snowboarding buddies would join me and we would spend the weekend there. A paid gig with a crowd, friends and snowboarding seemed like ideal.
One week before I was due to move back to Vancouver, I went to the Improv on a Friday night and started talking to someone who said they were a fan. I thought that was pretty cool. Then she said she was an agent at Creative Artists Agency. Yeah, My ears perked up a little. She said CAA could be a huge help for me but didn’t officially offer me anything (as agents do). When she asked what I was doing with my career I told her I was moving back to Vancouver. She said that CAA could get me in the A- clubs in the U.S., bump my pay up, get me auditions and TV credits. My heart jumped a bit because in the last seven years no one said that to me once. I quickly realized that this was just a carrot. I had been through all this before.
I said, ”Can you get me a gig where you make my life better?”
She said “What do you mean?”
I said, “On Friday night I am doing a show in Whistler for $1000 bucks, my friends are coming and I get to go snowboarding the next day. Can you do that for me?”
I am pretty sure I just confused her. The conversation ended quickly after that. When she followed up later with a message I told her I hadn’t changed my mind.
I moved back to Vancouver and became roommates with Pete Johansson. Pete was a talented comic who knew the ups and downs of the career better than anyone. He had received a development deal in ‘97 and spent about eight years living in LA before returning to Vancouver.
I made up my mind to only pursue the gigs I wanted to do or gigs where I could snowboard. My snowboard joined me for most of that winter. In February 2008 I was in Calgary for a two-week run of shows with Sunday to Tuesday off. A friend gave me free lift passes that I could use at Fernie or Lake Louise, but I had to choose which destination. I was going to pick Louise because I wouldn’t need a hotel there. On Sunday I was watching the weather and noticed it was dumping “all time” at Fernie. At 6:00 that night I called the Motel 8, booked a room, threw my board in my Dodge SX 2.0 (a Dodge Neon with a better name) and drove down highway 22 X and right into the storm of the decade. It was snowing so hard going through the Crowsnest Pass I got out of my car to see where the highway edges were. What is normally a three and a half hour drive took me over six hours. I arrived just after midnight, unsure of how I was still alive as they had closed the highway behind me.
It was worth it! The Over 100 centimetres of blower pow-–snow so soft that you can’t even make a snowball out of it. It was like snowboarding in a Michelin Man suit. You could fall all you wanted but you couldn’t get hurt. Sure, it was -25 but I wasn’t leaving the hill. The following day was just as insane.
That night at dinner by myself, I noticed a stage in the corner of the room. I thought, “I could do a show here.” The place probably only sat 50 people but I should be able to make enough money to cover my lift ticket and hotel room. I’d take the money from ticket sales and do the advertising myself. My buddies could come too. It would be my ultimate dream. I texted my snowboarding buddy and told him all about my day. He texted back, “who dis?” Maybe we weren’t as close as I thought. That night I grabbed a map from the hotel lobby called the Powder Highway that listed all the ski hills in B.C. Some I had never even heard of. I circled the ones I thought would be fun to hit.
A couple of months later my old friend and fellow comedian Glenn Wool returned home to Vancouver from England for a visit. Glenn had been making a name for himself in England and was considered one of the better comics there. We started out together but hadn’t worked together in years. I told him about my idea and he asked if he could come along. I was excited to have someone to share this with as I doubted my snowboarding buddy was actually going to come.
One of the toughest parts about being a circuit comedian is that once your career starts to take off, you never get to work with the comics you started out with anymore.
That summer Pete Johansson was ready to move to England full-time. He had just convinced two bar owners in Victoria to bring comedy to their sports pub, a poorly named venue for comedy, Hecklers. It was named after sports hecklers, but still, a terrible name for a comedy club. Pete booked me for the first show and then moved to England, saying “you take over.”
Oh shit, now I was a booker.
Glenn Wool called me in August from the Edinburgh festival. I’m pretty sure it was during a late-night party. He asked me if Craig Campbell and Ed Byrne could join the tour. Craig was another Canadian comic expat living in England. He was a legend amongst comics in Canada, not just for his vibrant storytelling but also his reputation for not taking any shit from club bookers. Ed was an Irish comic who had become a household name in the UK and already done the Conan O’Brien show five times. I was excited to have such great talents, but also knew my idea of throwing my snowboard in my Dodge Neon, sorry SX 2.0, and playing to 30-50 people was not going to cut it with these guys on board. It would be a shame to have that much talent playing to such a small crowd.
By September, I had put a plan together and met with Glenn, Ed and Craig at Glenn’s apartment in London. I told them my plan of renting theatres, doing radio ads, newspaper ads and calling it “The Snowed In Comedy Tour.” I think they laughed at me. I remember Craig saying “let’s just call it the four guys comedy tour.” I was like, “hmm, I think I will go with my idea.”
It wasn’t the easiest sell, but I think they were just like, whatever, let’s do it. We hoped it would cost us less than just going on a ski trip, but we agreed to split the profit or loss.
We had nine shows in 2009, our first year. It was a mixture of large theatres near ski hills on weekends, and ski hill bars on weeknights. We had a blast and much to our surprise, it made a profit. We decided to do it again and I thought, “I can build on this.” I added more shows and learned from my mistakes.
Each year since that first tour, I continue to do the same thing. I add more shows and I learn from my mistakes. I should probably just stop making mistakes.
I rediscovered my passion for stand-up. Every year I write a brand new show for the tour.
For 12 years I booked for Hecklers, up until this past summer when I decided to focus on Snowed In full- time. I learned a lot from being on both sides of the business. My biggest takeaway was that you are always working for yourself. We are all on our own chasing this idea of what it means to be successful. You will have ups and downs in your career but if you pursue what makes you really happy, you can find it. You don’t need to follow someone else’s idea of success to create it. Sometimes just following your passion can lead you to where you were meant to be.
Snowed In Comedy Tour is now in its 12th year, with 65 cities and 70 shows, stretching from coast-to-coast. Last year we sold 20,000 tickets. They still talk about “that year” in Fernie, and my snowboarding buddy came through. He has made it out to snowboard with me during every one of the tours. Our largest show is over 1400 people in Victoria. This year’s show includes Debra DiGiovanni, Pete Zedlacher, Paul Myrehaug and filling in is Erica Sigurdson, and Damonde Tschritter.
