I’ve spent the past couple days putting together year-end lists for the New Year’s issue of the Mercury. (Yes, we editors really leap to some outrageous creative heights in December. Stay tuned for my list of the “Top-5 Christmas Gifts to Distract Mom from the Fact That She’s Menopausal, and Also That Her Hungover Ingrate of a Daughter Couldn’t Even Be Bothered to Help Decorate the Tree This Year.”) This rather insightful comment was on Andrew Tonry’s year-in-comedy list:

Venue that Needs to Drop the Two-Item-Minimum Because it Scares People Off: Helium. As long as the drinks stay reasonably priced—which they are—patrons are likely to buy AT LEAST two over the course of a 2 1/2 hour show. Telling them they must strikes a rebellious nerve.

I would be so much more likely to go to Helium’s fun-sounding trivia/comedy hybrid night on Wednesday if I do not feel obligated to buy two drinks. Because don’t tell me what to do, Mom, I’m a grown-up lady, and I will have four whiskey sodas, thank you very much. I am also less likely to be distracted by Helium’s profoundly generic decor and occasional flights of intense FOH disorganization if I am not already looking for things to nitpick.

Alison Hallett served nobly as the Mercury's arts editor from 2008-2014. Her proud legacy lives on.

15 replies on “Not Invited Back: Drink Minumums”

  2. Funny I actually decided not to go to helium a couple weeks back over the drink minimum and a concern that those might be 8-10 dollar well drinks.

  3. I went there once when they opened, saw that bullshit and haven’t been back. Made me feel like I was at a strip club in Seattle.

    We were sooo happy that Hari Kondabolu was at Curious Comedy last week. Better drinks and food there, as well.

  5. Was just listening to Doug Benson and Marc Maron on last weeks’ episode of the WTF Podcast. The general feeling I got from them is that comedians themselves really dislike 2 drink minimums, because it greatly increases the potential for rampant asshattery in the crowd.

  6. I had no idea non-strip clubs still do this. My first thought, too, was any minimum just facilitates the worst part of comedy shows which is unfunny, drunk dicks in the audience thinking they are the show.

  7. Drink minimums don’t bother me, it’s those pesky drink maximums…

    I just wish there was someone, somewhere, with an art+music blog. But I suppose that’s an impossible dream.

  8. The only time I was in a comedy club in the last couple of years, the servers harassed my wife so badly about this– despite the fact that she rarely drinks, and I offered to pay for her minimum beverage allotment anyway– that we’ve not been back to one since.

  9. I know it’s obnoxious to whine and regardless of how many rules there are I’ll show up for a few comedians (Maron, Oswalt, Pardo) but if the item minimum didn’t exist I’d go there *more* often instead of less.

  11. You can hand me your two drinks if you don’t want them. It will be interesting on OLCC night when I have 10 drinks stacked in front of me.

  12. It is weird that the OLCC seems to ban just about everything fun, but 2 drink minimums are ok… I guess if it was 2 drink minimums sponsored by four loco then they’d kick some ass.

  13. It’s a pretty simple equation: the more rules you put on people, the less likely they are to come back.

    Going out shouldn’t involve chores.

  14. Actually it’s a “2 item minimum”, so even if you don’t drink you can “follow the rules” and get food. Either way it turns a “free” trivia night into a $20 per person night. I understand doing it on a night like that, but I resent it on a night when I am expected to pay $30 to see a comedian, and then hit up for another $20 worth of “bar food” that I don’t really want.
    Does any of this minimum even go to the performers?
    I’m willing to pay $25 to see Patton Oswalt in their small club, but if it’s $45 I’ll wait for him to play a theater, or hope to win the tickets on a giveaway which they seem to have a lot of.

  15. I went to helium when they first opened and was so offended by the 2 drink minimum that I refuse to return as well, even though I have wanted to see a couple of the comedians there since, I just won;t do it, it is low class and kinda sleezy to spring that on you once you sit down

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