Here’s a punch line: the Top 30 comedy tours in 2023 pulled in over a half-billion dollars, up over 40 percent from the year before, per Pollstar. With even bigger dates expected this year, and touring comedy ticket prices approaching those of concerts, audience experience expectations are way up. In a comedy performance, if you miss the punchline, you miss the show, which is why these tours are putting as much emphasis on quality sound as they do for music tours. It’s also why Jacksonville, Florida-based AVL Productions sent iconoclastic comedian Theo Von out on his current “Return of the Rat” tour with an L-Acoustics K3 concert sound system.
“It’s important that every seat in the house have the exact same experience, whether it’s the first row or the last, and that every seat have the same high degree of intelligibility from the PA system,” says Nate Martine, Audio Engineer at AVL Productions and on the Von tour. The system, designed using L-Acoustics Soundvision software for the...
