Co-founder · Host · Crowd Work · Improv
Aaron Bare
Give him a microphone and a room full of strangers. Suddenly everybody's in the show.
Aaron's only rule: Have fun!
- Shows hosted
- 33+
- Strangers yes-anded
- 1,000s
- Dead rooms revived
- Uncounted
The story
Aaron Bare is a FUNNYAF co-founder, Arizona After Dark co-host, and crowd-work and improv obsessive. His favourite script is the one the audience accidentally writes. You came to watch a show; somehow your oddly specific job is now the opening scene.
He treats the crowd like scene partners, not targets: listen closely, say yes-and, and make the other person look good. Less 'let me roast your shirt,' more 'how did we all end up in this wonderfully ridiculous moment together?'
At FUNNYAF, Aaron brings hosting, improv and live-room mechanics to comedians, speakers and facilitators. He's also the author of Magnetic Zero and Exponential Theory. Yes, the man who loves an unscripted moment wrote books. We contain multitudes. And occasionally a callback.
Aaron's only rule: Have fun! Leave the ego outside, bring your weirdness inside, and give the room something to play with. A microphone is not a licence to be mean. It is, however, an excellent invitation to get delightfully off-script.
“The crowd doesn't want you to win. They want you to be present enough that they can relax.”
What Aaron teaches
The part of the system he owns.
Crowd work as conversation
How to open a stranger, find the specific, protect the audience, and turn a real answer into a real laugh. No scripts, no victims.
Improv for comedians
Yes-and, status, scene heightening, and making your partner look good — not as theater games, but as tools for stand-ups, hosts, and anyone who has to be funny without a net.
Hosting the room
Energy, pacing, crowd calibration, and the art of making every performer and audience member feel like the show is for them.
Aaron's crowd work moves
The room is the material.
Four crowd work and improv moves, plus a heckle simulator. Pick a response, see what it costs you.
listen → accept → heighten → hand it back
Heckle simulator
Handled 0 · Room won 0
Ask the room a question you actually want the answer to. The bit is built from what they say back.
Why it worksFake crowd work asks for a setup it already has a punchline for. Aaron asks a genuine question, listens to the weird part of the answer, and builds there. The room can tell the difference instantly.
Watch the move get built
1 / 5
Pick one person
Eye contact. One human, not the whole room.
Sir. Front row. What did you do today?
Drill · Three real questions
Write three questions you'd genuinely want answered by a stranger. No setups. Ask one of them to an actual person today and write down the strangest word they used.
3 questions · 1 real human · 10 minutes
Signature moves
The Cold Open
Walks on stage with nothing and finds the first honest laugh in the room within thirty seconds.
Yes-and the Audience
Takes a real answer, heightens it, and hands the laugh back to the person who gave it.
Save the Energy
When a bit tanks, he converts the silence into attention and starts over from the room.
“Crowd work is just improv where the scene partner is scared and sober.”
Train with the people who actually do this on a Friday.
The other one
Forbes Shannon →