Louis C.K. Breaks The System Again, Makes $4.5 Million In 45 Hours

06/28/2012

So, we saw super-comedian Louis C.K. tromp the usual industry sales format last year when he dragged in a cool million dollars over a week and change by selling his "Live At The Beacon" special through his website for five dollars a pop, and keeping up with his trend of bypassing the normal route, he, as the title says, just earned himself a hands-off $4.5 million under, essentially, the same system.

Here's what he told Entertainment Weekly:

“The cheapest ticket in most comedians’ markets is $45, which is, like, a horrible seat at a Bill Maher show, and then you have a ticket charge on top of that. My tickets are going to be $45 all over the country, and there’s no ticket charges because we’ve made deals with venues that don’t have lockdown affiliation deals.”

Going along with that idea, Louis sack-tapped Ticketmaster, sold passes to his shows at forty-five dollars apiece through his website, and managed to drag in the aforementioned profit in just under two days. Sure, he's one of the biggest comedians in the world, but that doesn't really matter.

“I don’t do this for money,” he said. “To me, it’s the number of tickets I sell that’s satisfying. I like knowing we sold out Chicago in an hour. That’s a good feeling. This year I’m going to have the lowest tickets on the road. I’m going to be the cheapest comedian ever!”

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Comments (5)

Keith Tyler : - I don't know how you can say he "made" 4.5 million. Anyone who has ever had to track a budget knows that is *gross*, or income before expenses, and not *net*, which is after you've paid what you need to pay and is what you actually "make". We don't know what his expenses will be for this tour -- he has to pay for his travel, pay the venues, cover sales taxes that he is eating, pay for hosting and probably for the ticket program he is using, as well as cart around or send out the equipment that will read them at the door (and detect fakes). And then there's the mysterious black-ops anti-scalping system that costs question marks. CK, come back and talk when the tour actually starts and you start having to actually perform -- and control access to, and pay for, and so on -- these shows.

August 30, 2012