Announcing our Harold Hero Competition

There’s something magical about Harold Night. Not only is it a place to see some mind-blowing improv and enjoy some big laughs, but it’s also the de facto social hub of the community, with so many students, alums and performers coming through every Thursday.

We’ve seen time after time that students who prioritise Harold Night attendance tend to be among the strongest in their classes, and also end up being quite comfortable with the social aspects of our community, relative to their peers.

Still, not everyone knows about it, or why it’s so important to our community. Many of our students, especially in the lower levels (where we have the highest concentration of students) haven’t been to the theatre on a Thursday. It’s time to change that!

We’re thrilled to announce an exciting new incentive program for our students and alumni in 2020… the HAROLD HERO COMPETITION.

In short, if you're a student or alum of our improv workshops program, we’d love for you to binge on as many Harolds as you can, for FREE. Not only will you get to enjoy some great shows, but you’ll also go into the running for some great prizes. (Not a student yet? Sign up for a class here!)

FIRST OF ALL: STANDBY PASSES ARE NOW FREE FOR FRESH BLOOD AND HAROLD NIGHT

To incentivise attendance on Thursdays, we’re moving back to our old system of FREE STANDBY passes with student/alumni ID on Thursday nights for Fresh Blood and Harold Night. (Other nights will still require a $2 minimum donation to get a standby ticket.)

Once you run out of complimentary student tickets, you can still binge on Harolds without needing to pay anything!

THE HAROLD HERO COMPETITION

The idea behind the Harold Hero Competition is simple. Who in our student/alumni community can see the most Harolds during the quarter?

Most Thursdays at the theatre feature SIX different Harold-format performances:

• 2x Fresh Blood performances @ 6:30pm

• 2x Harold Night performances @ 7:45pm

• 2x Harold Night performances @ 9:00pm

During Comedy Festival (late March through most of April) we’ll be running Harold Night as a special Comedy Festival event, with one hour dedicated to 2x Harolds every night we’re open (so 8 per week, up from 6).

HOW DO I PARTICIPATE?

It doesn’t matter if you’re paying for tickets, using your student comps, or watching these shows on standby passes… each time you attend a Thursday Harold performance, simply get a hand stamp from our Front Of House staff as you enter the theatre for seating. Just ask “Can I get a stamp?” as you hand them your ticket, or gain entry via the standby queue.

When leaving the theatre for the night, head up to the bar, and tell the Front Of House staff your name and show them how many stamps are on your hand. They’ll mark down 1, 2 or 3 points per night based on how many stamps you have! Our office staff will tally the attendance reports the next day, and add them to the leaderboard.

Anyone pulling a sneaky and not watching shows they've been stamped for (or doing something else to game the system) will be removed from prize consideration.

HAROLD HERO HYPE THREAD

While not technically tied into the main competition, we will be starting a new Harold Hero thread each week in our Improv Conspiracy Community Water Cooler group on Facebook for you to share your favourite quotes, and post cool photos of the night in progress.

Not only should this be a bit of fun, but we also intend to award door prizes for thread participants from time to time for particularly memorable submissions.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PRIZES?

We’ll offer three different tiers of prizes:

• Weekly

• Monthly

• Quarterly Grand Prize

Here’s the prize structure for the first quarter: January, February, March

Weekly Prize

Everyone who sees all six Harolds on the night and gets three stamps/points will get a shout-out in our weekly leaderboard post in our Facebook groups, and will receive a free house drink, redeemable at a later date once viewership has been tallied.

Can’t see all the Harolds on the night? No worries, you can still accrue points towards the monthly and quarterly prizes!

Monthly Prize

The points leader for the calendar month will receive:

• A free drop-in class at the theatre, valued at $40

In the event of multiple people tied for the monthly leader, we’ll award the prize to everyone tied.

Quarterly Grand Prize

The points leader for the quarter will receive:

• A free 8-week term of classes at the Theatre, valued at $525 (Done with improv? Take sketch!)

• An opportunity to perform in a one-off Thursday Harold performance with their choice from a list of qualifying (*) house teams

In the event of multiple people tied for the quarterly leader, we’ll do a random drawing for each of the prizes above. Once assigned, these prizes are non-transferrable.

(* We expect that most teams will be willing to participate, however, some teams may not be available. Additionally, once a team has been selected by a quarterly winner, that team can’t be selected again by other quarterly winners during 2020.)