lastlaugh

That does sound like a palaver Derby Tup and we hope that our changes to bookings have made it better. You obviously encountered some problems. I don't know why the pub had a sign on the bar saying that tickets were available online. We've never yet sold tickets for The Merry Hell online. And I'm unclear as to which website said that the show started at 7.30 as our website has always said Doors 8.00pm, Show 8.30 pm. And we would never go down the hellish route of automated phone systems. Our answerphone just used to say "tell us which show you want, and how many tickets, and we'll hold them on the door for you". It ran for The Lescar and The Greystones, and it's run broadly like that for the last twenty years. We've only ever operated a reservation list, we've never sold tickets in advance. That's changed as of now, for a variety of reasons. Number 1 is speculative bookings. People would phone up and reserve 10 tickets, then try and round up some mates. If the mates didn't come, we were 10 people light. Obviously we over reserved to compensate for this, but some weeks we could get decimated. One night in November we had 100 booked for The Lescar, and only 41 turned up. We'd been turning people away from that show for a week. We've never run "first come, first served", as people like to know they're going to get in if they're organising a big night out, so it's important that they can book. Selling tickets behind the bar is a minefield. Someone like The Greystones probably has 20 or 30 events live and onsale at anyone time. The gigs will all be promoted by different people, so that means 20 or 30 people's cash knocking around at one time. The responsibility for all that cash would lie with The Greystones, and the administration of it would be too difficult, as well as having books of tickets all over the place. Our next gig is the first at The Greystones where we have used wegottickets.com . We've used it for the past two weeks at The Lescar and it's been brilliant. Yes, there's an 80p per ticket booking fee, but there's no more queueing up the stairs whilst we take money off people at the door. You just turn up, come in and sit down. People seem to really like the convenience of shopping online, we had our busiest week since October last week. And for the first time ever we can take advance bookings. We've sold tickets for The Lescar for the next seven weeks, and The Greystones has already half sold out for March 1st. It's early days for us with wegottickets. We still have ten tickets left on the door for walkups, but so far it looks like the good points of using an online agency far outweigh the bad ones.

Sorry to hear about this. If you're stuck in the meantime we have a small pa system that we could let you borrow to get out of any holes.

Well folks, that's it. Grin Up North 2011 is over, and one of the countries biggest comedy festivals has done about 100,000 tickets in the last month. Now, we'd love your feedback. As we start booking for 2012, please tell us what you thought of any events you came to, what you liked, what you didn't. What you'd like to see more of, if you'd like to be involved in any way, anything. Either on here or feedback@grinreaper.co.uk. On here's best though, you might jog someone else's memory. Thanks GUN

Howard Read brings his award winning show to Sheffield City Hall this Sunday, and it's fantastic fun for kids of all ages. Following their appearance on The Royal Variety Performance Big Howard and Little Howard have found themselves in trouble with The Queen. Come and see their brand new show. You'll recognise them from three series of the BBC One smash show Little Howard's Big Question, and you'll have heard of their nomination for the prestigious Perrier Awards, so come and spend Sunday afternoon with them. Tel 0114 2789 789 to book.

Two great nights of comedy tonight from Yorkshire's longest running comedy clubs. at The Lescar it's James Cook introducing Barry Dodds and Michael Legge, whilst at The Greystones it's the amazing Rob Rouse who introduces Bary and Michael. It's only £8 a ticket, and there are just a few left, so call 0114 221 0317 now! The Lescar is on Sharrowvale Road, and The Greystones is on Greystones Road. Doors 8pm, show starts 8.30 pm.

You decide where the longest running comedy club in Yorkshire goes next.... http://www.grinreaper.co.uk

Yep, comedy starts at 8.30, wraps up by 10.45 ish. Then we have our cheesy disco, which runs until it feels right to stop. We rarely (if ever?) close before midnight, and can go on til gone one if it's nice and jumping!

It's always advisable to book between October and March, as we sell out then. At the moment, there should be tickets available on the door, up in the balcony. However, booking's easy, just call Vicky on 0114 2210 317. We don't charge a booking fee, so there's no reason not to plan ahead.

Catch Sheffield's Ukulele sensations in their debut show at The Memorial Hall on April 1st. The Brothers will be introducing two fine, fine comedians in the shape of Andy Robinson and Steve Royle, and there'll be a nice cheesy disco afterwards. Tickets are available by calling 0114 22 10 317.

Toby's there. His show was meant to be inThe Memorial Hall, but that has already sold out, so we've moved him into The Oval Hall.

Cleared out now.

Hi We need some help setting up an excel spreadsheet with 104 pages, and building and maintaining a database. Can anyone recommend someone please?

Hi, we need a city centre place to put an office. Obviously we could rent an office, but I just thought I'd check to see if anyone had a spare office/space in their current shop/office that they'd like to share the cost on?

Hi We do have two clubs running this evening. There is our regular club at The Lescar, but tonight we'd prefer it if you came to our gig at The Burton Street Foundation in Hillsborough. It's got the same great acts on (Dougie Dunlop and Quincy), it's hosted by Toby Foster but most importantly, we won't earn a penny from it. All door take tonight will be donated to Sheffield Children's Hospital Charity so you can have a top night out secure in the knowledge that all your door take goes straight to a great local charity. Doors 7.45, show starts at 8pm. Check us out on http://www.lastlaughcomedy.com

Hi We run The Last Laugh Comedy Clubs in town, as well as a production agency. We are always interested in speaking to radio comedy writers, and we have the ability to get things made and in front of good people. We'd love to get involved.