A message from Co-Founders Nick Armstrong and Bill Binder –

In the Beginning…

After our official launch at Camp Improv Utopia in California at the end of May it’s been a whirlwind and we can’t thank you enough for your support. When we came up with the idea of NIN a few years back we wanted a place where we could bring improvisors together under one roof and help them grow as performers and as a community. We also set out to help improv theaters and festivals grow and help Improvisors find what they wanted to find: theaters, festivals and improv content. We still to this day believe in this philosophy and will always hold NIN to this standard as long as it exists.

Where We Are…

Flash-forward to today, we have 722 members, 63 festivals listed, 353 Troupes and 60 theatres listed. Now, we will be the first to admit it hasn’t been easy. Like any new site there are some bumps and holes. The site was running extremely slow due to the former server we were on and that was frustrating. Nobody was as frustrated as we were. We fixed it and now it’s running smoothly. We want a site that is user friendly and we apologize for that little hiccup. So far NIN has helped improvisors and festival organizers, with our Instant Submission service, be able to submit to a handful of participating festivals. Some of them include: The Detroit Improv Festival, The Denver Improv Festival, Eau Claire Improv Festival, Houston Improv Festival, Twin Cities Improv Festival, Milky Way Improv Festival, Big Little Comedy Festival, Orange County Improv Festival, The Phoenix Improv Festival, The Alaska State Improv Festival, The Red Rocks Improv Festival. Most all of the festivals listed have experienced more submissions than ever and better quality of troupes. Why a better quality? Because the members on our site are amazing and put up great and complete troupe profiles. So congrats you guys for being a festivals dream!

Where We are Going…

We aren’t just a submission service. NIN is so much more! Here are a list of things we are working on for you:

1. Chat Feature: See someone you like online? Curious about where they’re from? What improv they do? Well we want you guys to chat!
2. Master Teacher and Instructor pages. That’s right if you’re a Master Teacher or improv instructor you will be able to list your workshops and submit them to festivals as well! Or if you’re a festival organizer, you’ll be able to contact instructors, and read over their workshops. If you’re a teacher you will be able to upload your workshops and resume as a PDF and you’ll be able to list it on your personal profile site as well. *Our Master Teachers will be selected by a committee of Master Teachers. We will release those names when we launch the feature.
3. Troupe Profiles will be able to upload their songs so that festivals can just download them for easy use when they are accepted and perform at that festival.
4. Communication to our Members: We will have an area on each of our pages that will have the latest news or features introduced so you know what’s happening on a day to day basis. If we want you to know about it you’ll find it there!
5. Communities: 722 users can be daunting. But we’ll be adding public and private communities for improvisors to share ideas in smaller forums. Oklahoma improvisors, musical improv, marketing ideas. There will be many communities to find like-minded performers.

NIN Myths and Clarifications:

With all new things there are often times miscommunications. We have been guilty of miscommunications so we want to clarify a few things. NIN is a free site. Anyone is allowed to list their theater, festival, personal and troupe profile for free. However, if a festival uses our instant submission service there is a small fee per submission. The fee goes toward keeping the site maintained and paid for so we can continue to bring you this resource. If a festival decides not to use our submission service they can still list their site and direct their festival link to their own registration page for free. Every festival, theater and performer has different needs and we want to help all no matter what they’re need is.

Finally…Thank You!

We want to thank everyone who as joined the site, read some blogs, submitted to festivals and shared our site to their communities! We could not have done this alone. We honestly believe that we are all better together and we truly thank you for making NIN possible.

Nick Armstrong and Bill Binder

Co-Founders – National Improv Network (NIN)