This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. It's been a pretty heavy day, to say the least, certainly tracking all the news out of Afghanistan. So we thought maybe a little bit of a shift in our tone just to wrap up this Monday and our next guest we talked to roughly two years ago, and that was before her world, like ours, was rocked by the pandemic and shut down. We are so delighted to have back with us, Caroline Hers.
She's founder and owner of the legendary Carolines on Broadway. On this day where she and her team announcing that the New York Comedy Festival it is back, and Caroline joins us on the phone in New York City, how are you. I'm good, good afternoon. Yes, we're back, and we're happy to be back after we took a break
last year and coming back stronger than than ever. We announced some of our line up this morning, which was seventeen headliner shows, which then will be followed with over you know, two comedians performing in festival with a hundred shows which will be announced later on in September. That's a lot really happy. And it's gonna be happening in November, correct, a week long, November eighth through fourteenth, So it starts
Monday night, November eight through Sunday night fourteen. And we're really happy and excited and to get back into business and to have some more laughs in New York City, Oh my god, bring it on. Hey, Caroline, let me ask you. Let me just take a step back, if I may, the past year for comedians, I mean, what has it been like? What have you heard from that community about what it's been like. We know that the higher profile comics are hosts, you know, who are on broadcast.
They were able to pivot, but that's not always the case for every comedian. No, lots of the emerging talent that we deal with, you know, they weren't working, but a lot of them, um are now so happy. They are related. They're all over the place. I mean that we're working in the streets. They were work and wherever they could be heard. Um, they tried to get a job to do that. But now we're everybody's kind of back in business. Ups who are allowed to open beginning
of April. So we're we've been Caroline has been open. Um, we've had you know, like Michael Chaseman there every Tuesday night at the club doing a residency, and you know, he was telling jokes about you know, during COVID. He said, I had all of this material tent up in me. He said, I get on the subway and I'd just be talking to people and you know, telling them jokes on the subway, which maybe probably appreciate it. We all
could use a good laugh, that's no doubt about it. UM, tell us to you about remind us what's going on in clubs. We've been doing a lot of stories here at Bloomberg, certainly as restaurants have opened, as venues have opened that yes you can come in, but you've got to be vaccinated and people are checking. So that will go into effect. I believe in September that get goes. We're doing vaccinated shows, so we're we're protecting the public.
We want to protect our staff, UM, and we are that we're starting now all vaccinated shows, and that's just we'll be Look. Look, the clubs and the small venues around the United States really suffered. They were shut down, they and mandated to close and this year during the festival, we really want to highlight a lot of the smaller clubs around the city. So we're going out of our way to make sure that everybody participates this year on the festival. So who's going to be there? Can you
tell us about some of the headliners? Oh, some of the headlinists well, Kim Dylan, Michelle Wolf, Nor McDonald, Ronnie Chang, Mark Marin, Brian Reagan, Gary Goldman, Bill Morra will be back, Michelle Batteau, Andrew Santino's a new face for us. So we have lots and lots of great talent um appearing at you know, everywhere from Town Hall to the theater
at Madison Square Garden. And we're also this year we're doing something with City Bank it City Presents Comedy Included, and we're doing this to bring attention to hear diverse voices in the industry, in the comedy industry. So we'll have a two day panels going on in Carolines all about what's going on in the business. Well, and I do think about We've had so many different conversations with leaders and heads of companies that it's hard not to
you know, there's no going back to quote unquote normal. You. You know, we've been changed by the pandemic, We've been changed by George Floyd, We've been changed by so much. Um, comedy always feels that interesting spot that for a while we can't talk about things, and then we can. I think about after nine eleven, right, it was really quiet and then we needed humor to come back to help
us all find our way back. So how has the past year and a half on so many different levels, I mean and tough things like COVID, like George Floyd, like inequities, like diversity inclusions, so many different issues. How has that been incorporated into the festival that's coming up in November. Well, we like, like I I said to you, we're doing this two day event with City Presents Comedy Included,
and we'll have panel discussions, special performances. We'll hear from industry leaders about you know, bringing attention to to hearing everybody's voice in comedy, which you know, comedy is really pretty diverse, I have to say that, and Carolines has always been on top out of that, whether it be female, whether it be you know, um, gay comedy, whatever it was, it was urban comedy with women. I tried to I
really tried to highlight all this early early on. So we're going to do our best to even make it better. Will you do a great job? And we always, you know, whenever you're coming on with us, we talked about you're very successful, have done so well in a in a world that is very much dominated by men. How do you do it? And what is the what are some of the interactions that you've had with you say that? What is it like? Um? You know, for years, I just kind of just said, that's just the way it is.
But I look back now and I have to say, you know, I think if I had stood up a little more way back, you know, twenty years ago, I think, you know, things would have been a changed a little bit. I mean things that I just took for granted, like being a woman. Oh that's all right. You know, it was really kind of a man's world. It really was. The whole you know, entertainment business was was kind of like that. But I'm lucky now that things are changing, and I'm happy for young women that are now on
the field. There are so many more female comedians around right now. I mean, they've really taken it by storm, Well, how do you manage kind of all the egos and then you know, at the same time cultivating younger talent where it can be probably tough to kind of find your place. Um, we try hard. We try to see a lot of people, you know, we do we do something in the festival. We do a lot of different kinds of shows and the festivals so we're able to
see talent and present new talent. Um. I mean, we really do go out of a way to see people. We have a new Talent Night at Carolines. UM. But the year has been um challenging. Yeah, it's been stressful. I just feel like I'm hedging all the time, you know what I mean. Okay, you take two two feet forward and then three backward. I totally feel that. Yeah, I think we all keep saying we just want to
feel lighter. You know, it's it's really you know, it's really taking its toll and now with you know, talking about you know, everybody being vaccinated and worrying about a new variant coming through. So it's been a challenge. Well, we're we're going to be there, the festival's going on, and everybody will come out and everybody protected everybody needs to get vaccinated so they can all go out and see all the great shows. Everybody needs a good laugh.
The New York Comedy Festival a week long event November eight to November fourteenth. Caroline, Thank you. Caroline Hurst, founder and owner of Caroline's on Broadway, joining us on the phone in New York City.