How Many Comedians Does It Take To Headline An Arena?
The answer may surprise you! (Only if you're nostalgic for clickbait)
NOTE: This is part of a series quantifying the magnitude of the current comedy boom.
A stand-up comedian headlining an arena used to be a once-in-a-comedy-generation event.
Steve Martin disliked performing to giant crowds so much in the late 1970s that he quit stand-up entirely to focus on movies. In 1990, Andrew “Dice” Clay’s naughty nursery rhymes catapulted him to such stardom that he became the first comedian to sell out two shows at Madison Square Garden. It took another 16 years before the next comedian could play MSG in the round: Dane Cook.
And now? In 2023? Where should we start?
Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Gaffigan just announced a new four-arena for November that hits the Chase Center in San Francisco, the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, the United Center in Chicago, and the Enterprise Center in St. Louis. Tickets go on presale tomorrow through Ticketmaster.
Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Gaffigan. Photo by Mark Seliger
Meanwhile, closer to my home, Bert Kreischer’s Fully Loaded Comedy Festival kicks off tomorrow night at Forest Hills Stadium. It’ll cross America over the next month, with Bert and his funny buddies playing to crowds exceeding those of the previous decade’s Funny or Die Oddball tours.
2023 will be, by far, the biggest year ever for stand-up comedy touring, and the biggest test of how well the current digital comedy boom translates into real-life in-person ticket sales.
But before I get into that, please allow me to take a step back in time to process what happened between the rise of Dane Cook and the pandemic, when everything about live comedy touring briefly came to a halt.
To single out Madison Square Garden (just the arena, and not the adjacent 5,600-seat Theater at MSG, formerly called the Felt Forum), the first big comedy show to fill the room was a special event in 1989 that booked both George Burns and Bob Hope (performing separately, with a set from Dionne Warwick in between, and appearances by Miss Universe and Miss USA). Then Clay in 1990; and Cook in 2006. Tenacious D peformed in concert at MSG on Dec. 1, 2006, with openers Neil Hamburger and Supafloss. Chris Rock did MSG on New Year’s Eve as 2007 turned 2008.
But headlining the Garden back in the day — which as Cook would remind us, was a Wednesday — remained a rarity until the mid 2010s, when it became an almost annual fixture of the New York Comedy Festival, and then some.
2010: Eddie Izzard
2012: Kevin Hart (NYCF)
2014: Aziz Ansari; Russell Peters
2015: Louis CK; Hart; Gabriel Iglesias; Bill Burr (NYCF); Jim Gaffigan
2016: CK; Amy Schumer
2017: Impractical Jokers (The Tenderloins) (NYCF)
2018: Burr (NYCF)
2019: Sebastian Maniscalco; Trevor Noah (NYCF)
2020 — none due to pandemic (Rogan was rescheduled to 2021)
2021: Joe Rogan; Maniscalco
2022: John Mulaney; Hart and Rock; Jo Koy (NYCF)
2023: CK
So that’s 20 different acts to accomplish the feat of headlining Madison Square Garden. But 15 of those have done it since 2010.
And stadiums? Forget about it. Most people probably had forgotten, but Larry The Cable Guy performed at the University of Nebraska’s football stadium in 2009, a feat nowhere near equalled until 2015, when Hart told jokes where the Philadelphia Eagles play.
Which brings us back to present-day.
Fluffy filled Dodger Stadium twice last May for Netflix Is A Joke: The Festival, while Burr filled Fenway Park last summer. Here Burr is talking about that experience to Jim Norton and Sam Roberts on SiriusXM, and how Clay reached out to him to prepare for playing to the masses.
Looking over this year and into the next, I’ve already taken note of the following acts and tours who’ve got arena dates — in addition to the aforementioned Seinfeld/Gaffigan double-feature and Kreischer’s Fully Loaded tour…
Adam Sandler (February-April)
Andrew Schulz sold out Scotiabank Arena for JFL Toronto this September
Ryan Hamilton plays Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City in November
Royal Comedy Tour (Sommore, Lavell Crawford, Bruce Bruce, Don DC Curry, Arnez J, Joe Clair, Special K)
Straight Jokes, No Chaser Comedy Tour (hosted by Mike Epps, with Cedric The Entertainer, Earthquake, D.L. Hughley, and DC Young Fly)
And those are just the tours I know about! Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock were double-teaming arenas recently.
Sebastian Maniscalco sold out the first comedy show at UBS Arena on the Queens/Long Island border in 2021, but is currently touring casino theaters for multiple nights each instead of one-nighters in arenas. Brian Regan has played the arena in SLC, and if you count the Mohegan Sun Arena, there are a bunch more — heck, Matt Rife just snagged four dates at Mohegan Sun for 2024.
So that’s at least 20 DIFFERENT stand-up tours hitting arenas in 2023.
Can you think of any time when stand-up comedy has enjoyed greater success on the road, at least for its biggest acts? I can’t.