Austin Improv

Did you know before hand, or did you cheat? Bootney is one of my favorite completely ridiculous characters in all of cinema. Also, that movie contains my single favorite dialogue exchange of all time.

It's nice to win awards, but how can you feel good about accepting them when you know it wasn't all talent that got you the award...
Marketing be damned. We should be humble. I guess that's not how winners win though, is it?

You don't get booked at Alamo or make the cover of the Chronicle by being humble.
To me, this is never about the "winning" of the award. Yes, in this case that part is cheap and meaningless and hollow.
But rather, it is about the "utlization" of the award after the fact. Slapping it on marketing, etc. Consumers still give such things some weight. Not the end-all, be-all, but some and some people WILL take more notice of an ad and be more likely to come see you for having that in there. That's why I'd like one. To advertise with, not to actually brag about winning. Saying we're above trying for it because of what it is is essentially saying that you're above getting another marketing edge and angle to pull more new people into the theater.

As for rationale for not voting for the AIC, I have two. One is that the general, non-improvising public is already confused about the concept of the AIC and it is odd to say the winner of best comedy troupe (not group) is a collection of two dozen troupes banded together (that seems even more diluted and sycophantic than just getting your friends to vote for your 1 troupe. It's like saying the Best Music Venue is "6th Street"). My other is that I think ColdTowne would have a shot on their own if we all supported them because they *do* have some recognition outisde our improv community (both with other performing arts communities like stand-ups, and with patrons). It would suck to find out that they lost to Ester's by a dozen votes because half our community voted for the AIC and half for them. I guess I think that if we ALL voted for the AIC, it would still lose, but if we ALL voted for CTowne, they stand a shot at picking up enough other, additional votes to win.
I'd rather vote for one troupe and hope they win and bring awareness to the community than trying to vote for the community and getting no awareness if it doesn't.

That said, vote for Pgraph!

the category is best comedy group. vote for the fucking category. who is the best comedy group? that's it.

beardedlamb wrote:the category is best comedy group. vote for the fucking category. who is the best comedy group? that's it.

true. I know who makes me laugh the most.

kaci_beeler wrote:true. I know who makes me laugh the most.

OK, fine.
Everyone vote for "Roy Looking For His Socks"

All of this talk of strategic voting is a little insulting--last year ColdTowne and Girls did just fine with out a bunch of lame pre-vote bean counting. And Girls got there without ever encouraging people to go out and vote for them (if I remember correctly). People know who some of us are and let's just let that play out. Why tarnish a CT (or whomever) victory with a bunch of "Well, we all just voted for you so Esther's wouldn't win."

Wesley wrote: bring awareness to the community than trying to vote for the community and getting no awareness if it doesn't.

Let me also add that it's a little weird to claim that there is no awareness of our community. We're getting a review a week of improv troupes in the Chronicle leading up to Out of Bounds. That includes troupes that have been in existence for less than a year, and many less than two years. A lot of people in other disciplines would kill for that kind of coverage.

It's not perfect and it hasn't happened overnight, but there is awareness of what we're up to. If we feel small in the big picture of Austin culture, it's because we are, in fact, kind of small.

shando wrote:All of this talk of strategic voting is a little insulting--last year ColdTowne and Girls did just fine with out a bunch of lame pre-vote bean counting. And Girls got there without ever encouraging people to go out and vote for them (if I remember correctly). People know who some of us are and let's just let that play out. Why tarnish a CT (or whomever) victory with a bunch of "Well, we all just voted for you so Esther's wouldn't win."

I should note that, to the best of my knowledge, we aren't asking any of you to vote for ColdTowne (note: I'm not saying Shannon thinikgs this). Frankly, I think that' s a little crass. And I would expect you all to vote your conscious, which you will.

I wanted to explain why we would be asking our mailing list to vote for us, etc..., because it seemed some people were uncomfortable with "campaigning."

Also, tired = horrible spelling.

kbadr wrote:

kaci_beeler wrote:true. I know who makes me laugh the most.

OK, fine.
Everyone vote for "Roy Looking For His Socks"

Yay!

Jastroch wrote: I should note that, to the best of my knowledge, we aren't asking any of you to vote for ColdTowne (note: I'm not saying Shannon thinikgs this). Frankly, I think that' s a little crass. And I would expect you all to vote your conscious, which you will.

Yes, I'm fine with people asking their mailing or anyone else list to vote for them. I just did it myself. So I wasn't talking about what anyone might be doing for their individual troupes as lame. I was talking about the sentiment expressed elsewhere on this thread that as a community we were all going to have to pool out votes so that the dreaded Esther's didn't win, or whatever it is people are concerend about. That's what I was talking about when I called it pre-vote bean counting. And it's not the troupes themselves advocating it, it's other people who don't want the voting to be divisive or something and want us all to get behind a certain candidate. Have a little faith people. I wouldn't be surprised if an improv troupe won even though they rejiggered the name of the award.

i'd also like to point out that there are the critics picks which seem to be whatever the heck they feel like recognizing. so lets not give up hope

in interest of full disclosure, i imagine ggg probably emailed our mailing list last year to ask them to vote for us. and we did it again this year.

both CT and GGG split last year on best improv... I'd imagine it wasn't an exact statistical tie, just the chronicle staff thinking "close enough, they're both deserving", so there's a bit of that thinking thrown in there in addition to sheer numbers.

that being said, Kinko's and HEB were also reader's poll winners last year in certain categories; sometimes corporate wins.

shando wrote: Yes, I'm fine with people asking their mailing or anyone else list to vote for them. I just did it myself. So I wasn't talking about what anyone might be doing for their individual troupes as lame. I was talking about the sentiment expressed elsewhere on this thread that as a community we were all going to have to pool out votes so that the dreaded Esther's didn't win, or whatever it is people are concerend about. That's what I was talking about when I called it pre-vote bean counting. And it's not the troupes themselves advocating it, it's other people who don't want the voting to be divisive or something and want us all to get behind a certain candidate. Have a little faith people. I wouldn't be surprised if an improv troupe won even though they rejiggered the name of the award.

You are correct. I think pooling votes is silly.

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