Comedy club brand Jongleurs is to return to the operator of the Walkabout bar concept for the first time in over four years.
Intertain has signed a deal to introduce Jongleurs into five venues that currently operate the bar group’s Highlight brand - in Camden, Watford, Reading, Leeds and Birmingham - from 1 May.
The Walkabout operator previously held exclusive rights to the Jongleurs name under its previous guise of Regent Inns. The rights were lost after Regent underwent pre-pack administration at the end of 2009. Rights to the brand are now sold on a territory exclusivity basis in the UK.
Intertain chief operating officer Simon Kaye told M&C Report that the trigger to take Jongleurs back was the administration of Momo Leisure in September. This freed up the licence for the comedy brand in Birmingham - Momo had operated Jongleurs at a site in the city.
Momo had also agrees a joint venture with Luminar to introduce Jongleurs into selected Luminar venues.
“By us stepping in and taking the Jongleurs name, we effectively minimise the risk of Jongleurs opening up on our doorstep.”
He added: “The deal is such that we get synergy savings. We pay them some money as a franchisee but we take out the costs of our booking transaction and our box office and the costs of running the Highlights website.
“There’s a lot of things that came together. We’ll save some cash, we’ll probably get more revenue, we’ll take out a competitor, and we’ll probably have more customers. If you want to go for a comedy night out the first name that comes to your head is Jongleurs - our expectation is that we will see more traffic.”
Asked if Intertain could look to operate Jongleurs nights at more venues, Kaye said: “Maybe, in the event that we saw good growth from it. But that isn’t really our prime motivation. We haven’t got a pipeline where we say, we can see these three coming on board.”
Earlier this year it was reported that a number of comedians were angry with Jongleurs because they were not being paid on time. Kaye said: “I understand that [Jongleurs] has a schedule for addressing any shortfalls that they’ve got.
“We will be writing directly to comedians to explain that any concerns they’ve got will be allayed by the fact that the cheques will go directly from Intertain to them or their agents.”
Comedy shows at the five Intertain sites will continue to take place on Fridays and Saturdays throughout the year, with the venues being used for live music, club nights and private hire the rest of the week. In the run up to Christmas, stand-up shows will also run throughout the week.
Intertain chief executive John Leslie said: “We’ve seen good ticket sales growth over the last 18 months, and our expectation is that bringing the famous Jongleurs name back to our venues will boost these still further.
“The deal brings Intertain a more established comedy brand name, the benefit of a combined Jongleurs and highlight database, simplicity of operation and geographical exclusivity around the clubs.”
Under the deal, intellectual rights to the Jongleurs name will remain Jongleurs Comedy Limited.
