Nick Hoff’s first stand-up gig was to an audience of zero in an empty cafeteria. Not his fault. It was 2005 and he was a recent addition to the Los Angeles landscape, after packing up his post-college life in Indiana and hightailing it to the City of Angels, where stages, open mics and a dream to do comedy called to him.
After being turned down two times to perform in college, the second of which involved him asking if he could open for comedian George Carlin at a performing arts venue, he got a yes at Otis College of Art and Design. There were two comedians on the bill. After the first was done, the host brought Hoff on stage and promptly left.
There was nobody in the cafeteria. He tried to interact with passing students and the cooks in the back, but to no avail. The event actually wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened.
“Half of it was getting the gumption to get up there,” Hoff said from L.A., where he still lives.
“It did take me a while to get up there. I sat in the back of clubs and open mics to gather up the nerve to do what over the last eight years I’d built up in my head. It was the best-case scenario to go up in front of nobody.
It got the monkey off my back.” Nowadays, his career looks a whole lot different. He tours the country and co-hosts a weekly SiriusXM show.
He was featured in Netflix’s Comedy Festival, and his 2017 debut album, “Baby Daddy,” hit No. 1 on the iTunes comedy charts. Two specials, “Front to Back” and “Americ.
