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A new comedy club has opened in San Antonio. The city’s downtown had been without a downtown comedy club since 2019.
The Riot Comedy Club opened this past week at its location beneath the Maverick Hotel at 400 East Houston Street. The space includes a 100-seat showroom and features a rotating lineup of comedians from Texas and around the country.
Owner Brian Gendron, who also operates The Riot Comedy Club in Houston, said San Antonio needed another comedy outlet.
“We were looking at a few different markets. Interestingly enough, Brooklyn, New York is one that we were looking at and still continue to look at, and a few other parts of Houston, but San Antonio kept coming back up—and the reason being that it's such a massive market, just by population, underserved for comedy,” Gendron said.
Gendron, a native of New Hampshire, has lived in Houston for the past 18 years. He started The Riot Comedy Club in Houston five years ago.
Gendron, who has performed as a comedian for the past six years, said he loves to help out comedians who are just getting started in business.
“That's my one of my favorite parts of this whole thing that I do is helping new comics, young comics, advance through this for the industry, and so absolutely, one of the things that we're very excited about is helping the local scene in San Antonio," he told TPR.
“New aspiring comedians, comics who've been in it for, we'll call it under five years, they are new, right?” he said. “And so Monday through Wednesday, we have our open mic night, which allows new comics to sign up and maybe perform for the first time … or someone working out their act, they're trying to find their voice, as well as professional comedians, to work out their new material.”
Gendron said almost anyone can be a comedian, but you have to take the first steps.
“Get some funny ideas. Try to write some jokes. Guess what? It's not going to be funny your first time. It's just not,” he said. “You're not going to be comfortable enough for the audience to trust you, which is a lot of what is involved here with this art that we do, but you just ... honestly, you just got to do it. You’ve got to sign up.”
