Things often look bleak during Victoria’s rainy and cold winter months. Wintertime sadness, illness, and general hatred of our city’s weather all set in and people start to ask themselves, “Why must we live in such gloominess?” Well, Victorians can stop asking themselves that now, because the annual Snowed In Comedy Tour is returning to town.
Just for Laughs winner and Snowed In Comedy Tour organizer Dan Quinn says that people in town have been very supportive of the tour.
“It’s getting more fun every year because people know us and we’re getting that response when we walk on stage,” he says. “We walk on stage and it’s like, ‘Oh, this guy’s coming; I love him!’ Victoria’s the biggest venue we play on tour; they’ve been supporting us from day one.”
Quinn says that things are going well with the tour so far this year, with ticket sales in most places doing better than last year.
“Our ticket sales on opening weekend were double what they were last year,” he says. “I think Victoria will mostly be the same, but in most other places sales were over what we did last year. We’re just selling out way faster this year.”
Quinn admits that the future of the tour is an ongoing concern for him, but he’s grateful that, along with new performer additions every time around, each year has been, he says, as fantastic—or more fantastic—as the last.
“I’ve got to be honest—every year I think, ‘Oh, wow; that was amazing! That’s probably as good as it’s ever going to be.’ Then the next year we go back and it’s even better,” he says. “It’s my favourite time of the year, and I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
Quinn hopes that at some point they get some exposure that would allow them to play to audiences across Canada comparable in size to the one here in town.
“We’re still expanding,” he says. “We’re now in 45 cities this year; our goal is that we’ll get some national exposure that would allow us to play to large audiences right across Canada and maybe into the US or around the world. It’s a pretty good show—you’ve got four guys that are really at the top of their game, and audiences respect that. So it’d be nice to get that and get the exposure and perform night after night.”
Quinn is no stranger to travelling around the globe performing stand-up; he says that his previous experience travelling to places like Amsterdam allows for him to play some interesting shows.
“It’s pretty cool, you know,” he says. “I was a farm boy, so for me to be able to go around the world and travel to places that I never thought I’d be able to get to, and not only go there but be able to do a fun show, is great. Amsterdam actually was very interesting—I just dropped into a comedy club and they put me on. It was an all-Dutch night, so I was the only guy speaking English. I’d watch other guys go up and I didn’t understand them but the crowd would laugh, so I figured, ‘Well, that must have been funny.’”
Snowed In Comedy Tour
8:30 pm Saturday, January 14
$42, Royal Theatre
rmts.bc.ca