Book comedians for your golf, tennis, pool, yacht, flying, athletic, polo or country club comedy night or private party.

The Ivy League of Comedy specializes in clean, professional corporate stand-up comedy that’s hilarious.

The cost of an Ivy League of Comedy show varies, depending on where, when and the mix of comics. To give you a ballpark number, a Saturday night, 3-comedian show (all of us are headliners; there are no weak middle acts or inexperienced emcees in our shows) runs from $3,000 to $5,000 if we can drive there and be back home that night. If we have to stay overnight, or fly, the shows will be more expensive. But if we’re traveling and can book more than one show on our trip (and you may be able to help with that), the cost goes down accordingly. For example, if a nearby club books us the night before or after your show, both clubs save. If your budget doesn’t allow that kind of cost, we can cut the number of comics down to two and still give you a 90-minute show, or you could have a solo comic for around an hour.

Asking how much a client should charge for tickets is always a hard one for us, because despite our expertise, you know your market and member demographics better than we do. You want a specific number? $50 to $100 plus whatever you add on for a meal. Pricing is probably more flexible than you think. This is a night of premium professional entertainment, not a garage cover band. Tickets to stage plays and musicals are quite expensive and your members pay for that. Promote this as high-quality professional entertainment, and price accordingly. This is not a night at a comedy club. It’s a premier event at your fancy club.

You can also find a way to charge an even higher fee for some tickets, like for seats up front or a post-show meet-and-greet or Q&A with the comics.

Of course they will- that’s why comedy nights are so popular. Take a look at our testimonials.

That’s us; the comedians from The Ivy League of Comedy are college-educated (many of us have graduate degrees including law) so we understand your demographics. And no, we won’t make you cringe. We specialize in clean comedy. That’s what we do.

You can watch a video or two of comedians from The Ivy League of Comedy, but the best way is simply to have a conversation with them. The first clue is if the comedian actually owns a tuxedo, because probably most do not. Corporate comedians specialize in, well, corporate-appropriate comedy.

The Ivy League of Comedy would be happy to perform at your member-guest tournament dinner or golf outing. The best time is after dinner, once the golf is over.

The Ivy League of Comedy would be happy to perform at your holiday party. Note that shows on New Year’s Eve are much more expensive.

Yes and no. Stand-up comedy that will entertain adults doesn’t really work for the under-14 crowd, so for your comedy night we suggest you arrange separate activities for the children.

Comedians from The Ivy League of Comedy plan to arrive a half-hour to an hour before your event so we can do sound check and ensure the set-up is best for a comedy show. We give you guidelines for how best to set up the room for a comedy show (but even then we may end up having to move chairs and tables, which is one reason we like to show up early). We’re not musicians or jugglers so we don’t have equipment to set up.

Whether your comedy night has just a headliner, or an opening act plus a headliner, depends on your budget. Shows for private clubs from The Ivy League of Comedy typically include three comedians, all headliners, which gives you variety in viewpoint, background, energy, style and topics, all professional comedians with over two decades of experience.

Very little. According to The Ivy League of Comedy, the main requirement is a working sound system with a hand-held microphone. A stage and stage lighting are nice, but not required.

After dinner is the best time for a comedy performance. I’m glad you didn’t also mention during dinner, because having a comedian perform during dinner is not ideal. The Ivy League of Comedy recommends having comedy after dinner, because we don’t want a hungry audience. During dessert is acceptable if the desserts have already been served and they’re on the table.

FYI one of the most distracting things I’ve experienced at a comedy show was a dessert cart. The server whispers to every person, everyone else at the table is trying to hear, and every other table wonders “Are we next? Why are they going to that table? Why not our table? Is there ice cream? Is anything gluten-free...”

After the awards would be okay if it’s not too late, but often after an awards ceremony people just want to go home (or to the bar).

We try to avoid outdoor shows. During the pandemic The Ivy League of Comedy did a lot of outdoor shows, and they did go well. But people were starved for live entertainment!

We want to provide you with the best show possible. Experience has shown that comedy works much better indoors. Here are just a few of the reasons:

Lighting: If the show is during the day lighting changes as the sun moves. Shadows change, the sun can disappear behind clouds or reappear. It can be in the performer’s eyes or the audience’s eyes. None of this is good.

If the show is at night the lighting may also change: cars can drive by, other outside lights can be a distraction, birds or insects can fly in front of the lights and cast giant shadows... And it’s also a lot harder to set up lights outside, especially if a show’s on a terrace or balcony.

Sound: Rarely is the sound at an outdoor comedy show as good as at an indoor show. Laughter’s contagious and it works best when it’s contained, echoing off walls and ceilings. A big audience in a small room is way better than a small audience in a big room. And there’s no bigger room than planet Earth. Well, there is but I don’t want to work there.

Focus: Anything that takes the attention away from the show is detrimental to the show, and outside there are more distractions, even at night.

Insects: Nobody wants to be eaten during a comedy show.

Set-up: We want the audience close to the stage, and close together. It’s too easy for people to spread out when the show’s outdoors and we don’t want the audience moving chairs or tables away from the stage or each other.

We want the best show possible. Having the show indoors is about you, not about us (except for the insect part, that’s for all of us).

That depends. When you work with a comedy production company like The Ivy League of Comedy to put on a comedy event for your private club, you get a full, complete, turn-key night. We provide the comedians, we give you promotional materials, we give you ideas for how to best market the event (founder and CEO Shaun Eli has been doing this for over two decades, and he majored in marketing at Wharton). We even give you guidance for how to set up the room.

The Ivy League of Comedy recommends you book your show at least three months out, more to give you time to market the show to your members than for us. We do get booked up, but we’ve also booked shows at the last minute (FYI if you need a last-minute booking, call (914) 487-3866; don’t email or text).

When you work with The Ivy League of Comedy you get comedians with more than two decades of experience, and a Wharton-educated marketing expert helping you promote your event. What more could you want?

If you want specific crowd work, you should discuss this in advance. But I’m wondering if this question mixes up crowd work with catering material to the audience.

Crowd work is when the comedian converses two-way with the audience. You see that from the emcee at a comedy club quite often. It’s something simple, like “What do you do for a living?” It’s generally used to break the ice when starting a show at a comedy club. It’s not really necessary in a theatre or country club setting, but if you want it, ask for it.

Talking about the quirks of the club, or any other material catered to this specific audience, doesn’t require crowd work. It could be something like when I (Shaun Eli, the founder of The Ivy League of Comedy) noticed that a yacht club’s race committee had one coach and four doctors. I said maybe the boats would go faster if you had four coaches and one doctor (yes, they loved that joke- who else would notice something like that but a comedian?).

You don’t really need comedians to do specific material about your organization, and sometimes material can be semi-custom, like jokes about a golf club that would apply to most golf clubs but would seem to be catered to your specific club by changing just a few words.

Comedians from The Ivy League of Comedy have a lot of experience hosting awards ceremonies.

That’s what comedians from The Ivy League of Comedy do— we make events fun!