Speeches by Hinds.

“A couple of you, Geoff in particular, mentioned possible Government support, incentives and cost reliefs that the sector might be looking for. Do we know of any other countries that do that? Any success stories?”

“Is Juste Pour Rire still going?”

“Going back to the live comedy sector as distinct—and you are here to talk about the live comedy sector—I am also interested to know who you would see yourself as most like. Are you most like a sitcom actor, most like a band playing in a pub or most like someone delivering a serious monologue in a theatre? Who do you ha…”

“I wanted to come back to something you were saying about your long list of comics who you could send into a school or hospital and have no worries about them. It strikes me that the brilliant thing about stand-up is you do not know what you are walking into. Also, the terrible thing about stand-up is you do not know wh…”

“The mix does not work if you bring your mum or your child. Do you know what I mean?”

“I was trying not to put words into our panel’s mouths but one question might be, yes, do you have some sort of—”

“There you go. She said it.”

“You are right. People do that.”

“In this debate about opt-in, opt-out on AI and copyright, it could apply differently in different sectors. When you hear the opt-in, opt-out, it sounds like people have a view about whether their material should be used or they can stop it being used. Actually, in some senses, in music, for example, it does not sound l…”

“I am talking about the scraping.”

“I should not have interrupted you. Sorry, I misunderstood what you said. Are you saying that the same remuneration system for when you write material for somebody else could be used for remuneration for your material being used by AI, even if you cannot say, “I produced this. It appeared there”?”

“Back to AI, how much of a competitive threat ultimately is this? Will AI actually be funny on purpose?”

“How long do we have?”

“I guess that is the point. As with music, potentially live experiences become more valuable, not less. In a world where so much stuff is an artifice and is coming to you, the experience is going to it and interacting with other people, particularly with comedy, as with the roar of the crowd for music and sport, the lau…”

“I can, yes. Social prescribing is a big thing. It comes up quite a lot more, probably, for all of us in our constituencies. People see great potential for it. It has no national framework or co-ordination. It is probably not the first thing that people think about at the GP surgery. Comedy is probably not the first thi…”

“Is that how it would manifest, basically, “Go to The Comedy Store. Here is a ticket,” or is it something else?”

“Comedy is about a lot more than economics, and we will come on to talk about social impact and health benefits, but I will stick with the economics for now. Geoff, I think you mentioned a figure of a £1 billion contribution to the UK economy each year. Sharon, do you recognise that number? I am sure that you are not go…”

“Are comedy courses quite a big business?”

“Is much money being made from YouTube ads, Creator Fund on TikTok and whatnot?”

“Jessica, you were talking about some of the current cost increases. You are in the position of being a profitable business, able to reduce profit—I know that sounds like an odd thing and, of course, other hospitality businesses will be facing some of the same issues, the same sort of nighttime economy in Manchester. At…”