Spirits Soaring For Salem Comedy Festival's Sold-Out Run Of Shows

SALEM, MA —In some ways, live comedy is like the proverbial bad penny — just when you think it's gone, it shows up and makes a comeback.

In other ways, many comics and audiences alike found out over the past three years, it's like any token of comfort, entertainment and nostalgia — you do not always know its true value until it's taken away.

That's what happened with in-person live comedy, along with nearly all other performing arts that relied on audiences and indoor venues, during the first months — and for some years — of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many comics tried to bide their time with virtual shows and outdoor performances, while others got out of a business that was often a hustle in the best of times, with much uncertainty about what the scene would someday look like on the other side.

This weekend, those who kept pushing the punchlines — and some relatively new to the stage — will show just how much the demand for laughter has roared back when the Salem Comedy & Spirits Festival returns to a run of sold-out shows across the Witch City.

"People are very excited for comedy," Festival founder and working comic Mark Scalia, who brought the event to his adopted hometown for the first time in 2016, told Patch on Thursday. "Venues are back. Many of them are oversold. Corporate work is pouring in.

"People want that experience. To be in the venue and feel it — the human connection once again. That's what drives people to come out to the venues and see people."

Scalia began performing live comedy in 1990 and moved to Salem in 2006. In 2015, he said he was approached about doing a festival in the Witch City, and paused at the proposition at first.

"I was thinking that there is already a festival every month in Salem," he said. "I was told they don't have anything in January. Well, I thought, there was a reason for that.

"But then I thought, wait a minute, this makes perfect sense. That is a time of year for locals. My festival is targeted toward locals and for local businesses."

Scalia's 2020 festival took place weeks before the venue shutdowns that disrupted lives and livelihoods throughout the industry. He said he performed his first outdoor show back in front of 30 people in July 2020. But virtual shows and festivals — the Salem Comedy & Spirits Festival was all virtual in 2021 and hybrid in 2022 while Salem was still under a mask and its short-lived proof-of-vaccination mandates — helped those who pushed through survive the leanest of times, and now he feels live comedy is experiencing a resurgence in popularity.

"Don't ever underestimate the need for a comedian to get attention and get money," he said of the pandemic perseverance. "But during that time you were thoroughly grateful for the people who showed up with the precautions and the people who were braving it to support you.

"It was very slow at first, and now with a couple of years under our belts, things are going crazy."

He said this past New Year's Eve the agency he works with sold out all 27 of its shows — including multiple shows a night at 200- and 300-seat venues — and that all the shows in this year's Salem Comedy & Spirits Festival were bought out well in advance of Thursday's opening night.

"All week I've had people calling and asking me if I have any tickets," he said. "I keep telling them: 'I don't know if you understand what 'sold out' actually means. But we're sold out.' I want the venue to be happy and the patrons to be happy so we keep things from being oversold."

This year's Salem venues include East Regiment Beer Company, Notch Brewing and the Deacon Giles Distillery.

"I'll often start a show by asking how many in the crowd are in the venue for the first time," he said. "When the management and owners see so many people raise their hands for the first time they love it. It's literally all local, local, local with this festival."

Scalia said that while he still enjoys hitting the stage he is looking forward to the next generation of comics taking his place with the prediction of a large influx of new talent taking over the region in the next few years.

"This is the upswing," he said. "You are going to see it go four to five, to maybe seven or eight, years, and then it will thin out as it always does. Something will replace it — like when everyone went to karaoke for a while.

"But then it will always come back. The need for live events will always be there."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)