This is the best in improv featuring our most experienced Hoopla House Teams, Hoopla teachers, professional groups featuring people who trained with Hoopla, and special guests from the UK improv scene.

At our main weekend shows we strive to put on the best improv possible for a mainstream crowd who want a great weekend night out. We aim to put on a mix of different improv styles with short-form, long-form, narrative and musical all welcome. Most of all shows should be lively, entertaining and fun and suitable for our lovely weekend audience in a big party of improv.

These shows are heavily promoted by our Producer including mainstream press.

The groups performing here will already be established on the improv circuit and bring in an audience.

What we look for in a group when progressing them to our Main Stage Shows:

• Puts on a fun & lively show that is suitable for a mainstream weekend audience.
• Puts on a show that is suitable for everyone, not just other improvisers (although it should be suitable for them too).
• Brings in an audience (although we also will support great shows that don’t have their own audience yet if they are a high standard).
• Able to help out with promoting of their show and Hoopla shows in general.
• Able to work as part of a team with our front of house staff, hosts, other groups and volunteers.
• Groups that are open to feedback from us so we can help shape the show to make it suitable for bigger audiences.
• Groups that want to help support and grow the improv community as a whole.
• Groups that are regularly rehearsing together and improving things step by step.
• Groups that do the show they are booked in to do, for instance no major changes in cast size.
• We’re supportive of all improv styles: short-form, long-form, narrative, musical etc are all welcome. However styles that don’t work so well in our venue are solo improv and slower or quieter two-prov.
• Other adhoc values we look out for include excitement, movement, playfulness, fun, physical, story, adventure, character, action and spontaneity. We tend to focus more on exciting comedic, story or musical improv than slower quieter improv.
• Most of all we’re looking for groups that are fun and care about giving the audience a good time. Especially the audience that are new to improv. We care about our audience and are looking for groups that want to give great first time improv experiences to new audiences.

Groups that have performed at Hoopla’s main shows:

Hoopla’s improv theatre has hosted shows from The Showstoppers, Austentatious, Paul Merton, Josie Lawrence, The Glenda J Collective, The Mischief Theatre (creators of The Play That Goes Wrong), many of The Comedy Store Players, many of the original cast of Whose Line Is It Anyway, Richard Herring, Dreamweaver, The RH Experience, The Maydays, Shoot from the Hip, Do Not Adjust Your Stage and more.

Financial Arrangement:

We never charge groups to hire the venue and never ask groups to pay a guarantee. This creates a space to perform that is open and accessible to everyone. People performing at Hoopla can put on a show without any financial burden whatsoever.

30% of box office (after vat and ticket agent fees) from each night, of at least £50, goes to Hoopla Impro. This helps pays for:

• An employed Producer to coordinate bookings and run promotions and press for our nights.
• An employed Front of House Manager to run box office and sound and lights for our nights.
• Advertising costs.
• Print costs.
• General overheads.
• Work involved in general press listings, marketing and promotion of shows.
• Ticket processing.

The remainder of box office is split between the performing groups depending on how long their slot length is, so a group performing the longer slot would receive a great proportion of income.

This doesn’t cover our costs of running the venue so our shows are also heavily subsidised by our classes.