THE SCENE
SOMETHING FUNNY IS HAPPENING
ON THE NORTHSHORE
Multiple independent producers. More venues taking chances on stand-up. Hundreds of tickets sold in a matter of days. What’s driving the Northshore’s growing appetite for live comedy?
BY DARRELL ROLLO | SEPTEMBER 11 2026
Five years ago, live stand up comedy on the Northshore looked very different.
There were occasional shows and a small number of recurring options, including Corey Mack’s late night Wednesday comedy show at Interference Sports Bar in Mandeville. After performing there a few times, I remember leaving one night and wondering what might happen if stand up was given a weekend night and treated as the main attraction at a bar on our side of the lake.
Unable to find a bar willing to take the chance, I eventually opened one myself. I didn’t know much about running a bar, but I knew I could put on a good comedy show.
The first comedy show at The Hideaway Den & Arcade in July 2022 was an experiment. Admission was free, the comics were friends, one was my bartender, and nobody really knew whether an audience would show up.
About 45 minutes before the show, someone was already waiting outside.
Then more people arrived.
By showtime, there was a line around the building. I remember stepping outside and taking a photo because I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing.
The line outside The Hideaway Den & Arcade before its first comedy show in July 2022. I took this photo that night because I couldn’t believe how many people had shown up.
What began as an experiment grew into a room capable of bringing nationally touring comedians to Mandeville. During its run, The Hideaway hosted comics including Sean Patton, Sam Tallent, Billy Wayne Davis, Louis Katz, Eddie Pepitone and Caitlin Peluffo, giving Northshore audiences the opportunity to see established touring stand ups without crossing the lake.
The success of those shows offered an early glimpse of what was possible when comedy was given a consistent home and treated as a serious part of the Northshore’s entertainment landscape. Something had clearly been waiting to happen.
Today, that audience is no longer concentrated in a few rooms. More Northshore venues are giving comedy a chance, multiple independent producers are putting on shows, and audiences are demonstrating that they’ll come out for stand up even on nights that traditionally haven’t been considered prime entertainment nights.
During one recent 11 day stretch, more than 400 tickets were sold across Northshore comedy shows produced by four different independent producers. At Ruby’s Roadhouse in Mandeville, 93 people turned out for a Thursday night show in August.
Other independent producers have been building audiences of their own. GG Comedy Tour has produced shows all around the Northshore, while Laugh United has established recurring comedy at venues including the Abita Brewing Company Taproom, helping give audiences more opportunities to see live stand up throughout the area.
Comedy is also becoming a regular part of the entertainment mix at venues across the Northshore. Ruby’s Roadhouse, Chafunkta Brewing Company, the Abita Brewing Company Taproom, Covington Country Club, Saint August Maison and 30 x Ninety Theatre are among the local venues that have hosted or continue to host comedy, giving producers more rooms to work with and audiences more places to find a show.
And not all of those shows follow the traditional stand up format. Some venues and producers are experimenting with concepts that blend comedy with other forms of entertainment. Ashleigh Voisin’s Hammered History, for example, takes unusual and often overlooked pieces of history and filters them through comedy and storytelling, drawing connections between the past and the absurdities of the present.
“For me, Hammered History’s greatness comes from a room of people laughing and learning together about history we all share,” Voisin said.
Voisin credits Saint August Maison with giving the show a place to develop, describing the venue as an “outstanding and gracious incubator” that was willing to take a chance on an unconventional concept.
The audience appears to be a mixture of longtime comedy fans accustomed to traveling to New Orleans and other cities for shows and people simply looking for more entertainment close to home, a date night, a night out with friends, or an alternative to the usual live music and karaoke.
Increasingly, they don’t have to leave the Northshore to find it.
The scene still has plenty of room to grow. By my count, only five or six working stand up comics currently live on the Northshore, meaning much of the talent performing locally travels from New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette and elsewhere around the Gulf South.
But compared with five years ago, there are more rooms, more producers and, most importantly, more people sitting in the seats.
Voisin sees that experimentation as part of something larger.
“I think the Northshore is beginning to embrace the larger scope of live entertainment and comedy,” she said, “and with so many varieties of incredible talent over here, I believe we will soon see a very diverse live art scene here.”
Whether that momentum becomes a lasting comedy scene will depend on what happens next: producers continuing to introduce audiences to different comics, venues continuing to take chances on stand up and audiences continuing to show up.
For now, though, something funny is definitely happening on the Northshore...
Around 80 people came through the door that night. A tip bucket intended to give the comics some gas money collected roughly $400. Audiences kept returning, and over the next two years, roughly 95 percent of Hideaway’s comedy shows sold out.
As those shows grew, comedian Josh Watts became an important part of what we were building. Together, we operated under the Northshore Comedy name, producing and promoting shows as the audience for stand up on this side of the lake continued to grow.
Sean Patton performs at The Hideaway Den & Arcade in Mandeville. The venue regularly brought nationally touring comedians to the Northshore during its run.