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Stand Up NY, left, and Broadway Comedy Club, right, are two similar comedy clubs with very different owners: Stand Ups’ use their youth and desire to innovate while Broadway’s relies on his experience. (photo: Sara Morrison)

A turf war is brewing on the corner of 44th and Broadway. Two rival comedy club promoters pace the sidewalk, equally aware of each other and the Times Square passers-by. It’s a zero-sum game: if one makes a sale, the other does not. And with each promoter’s income based solely on ticket sale commissions, no sale means no money.

The same scenario plays out on a larger scale between the two Manhattan clubs they represent: Broadway Comedy Club and Stand Up NY. While both offer nightly showcase-style shows featuring stand up comics, their owners’ approaches to the business are very different.

A promoter for Stand Up NY, left, keeps his eye on Broadway Comedy Club’s promoter, right, in Times Square. (photo: Sara Morrison)

“I know comedy,” says Al Martin, 53, confidently sitting back in a booth at his Broadway Comedy Club at 318 W. 53rd St. Twenty-five blocks north, at 236 W. 78th St., is Stand Up NY, owned by 30-year-olds Gabe Waldman and Dani Zoldan.

“We’re aggressively trying to do things differently here,” Zoldan says. Stand Up opened in 1986, but Zoldan and Waldman, good friends since high school, bought the club’s name and assets three years ago. Waldman “lives and breathes comedy,” says the more business-minded Zoldan, who opened his own telecommunications company seven years ago.

Martin, a former comic, has almost two decades’ experience over his younger competitors. Twenty-two years ago, he opened New York Comedy Club on Manhattan’s East Side. In 2003, he opened Broadway Comedy Club, adding the Broadway Comedy Club Café next door a year later. In all, the complex has three stages on two floors. The main stage is in the basement, and has a maximum seating capacity of 210.

Sue Costello takes the stage at Broadway Comedy Club, which she prefers to Stand Up NY. “Al [Martin, the owner] always gives me spots,” she says: “He thinks I kill more consistently than most comics.” (photo: Sara Morrison)

Sue Costello jumps onto that stage to open the National TV Headliner Showcase, Broadway’s weekend show. Costello’s act is loud and energetic. That’s especially important tonight, when she has to compete for the audience’s attention with both a group of lively Costa Rican tourists and the club’s servers, who repeatedly squeeze through the tightly packed audience taking and distributing drink orders.

This doesn’t seem to bother Costello, who tells the crowd that everything she’s been a part of has been cancelled – her own Fox sitcom, Costello, most notably — and jokes that Broadway Comedy Club will be out of business by Monday just because it booked her.

A year after buying Stand Up, Zoldan and Waldman decided that its appearance and audience needed to change. They hired prominent nightclub designers Steve Lewis and Marc Dizon to redesign the club’s first floor bar and main stage area to better fit with the upscale Upper West Side neighborhood. The second floor has a smaller stage and the company’s offices, where Zoldan and Waldman work alongside a young staff designed to attract new types of customers.

Godfrey performs at Stand Up NY. The comedian says he likes Stand Up’s young owners and what they’ve done with the club: “I feel like I can hang out, and that’s the key.” (photo: Sara Morrison)

Godfrey kicks off Stand Up NY’s Friday night show. Much of his act centers around his Nigerian father, but he does devote a few minutes to new material – namely, the ugly Hawaiian shirt worn by the Australian man in the front row as well as the personal taste of his wife, who bought it for him.

The couple, along with the many other foreigners in the audience, provide plenty of fodder for Godfrey and the subsequent four comedians on the night’s bill. With nearly half of ticket sales coming from the club’s Times Square street teams, it’s a safe bet that there will be plenty of tourists in the audience on any given night. “It’s like the Olympics down there,” Waldman says.

Zoldan hopes to increase the number of locals in the audience. Since taking over the club, the percentage of Times Square ticket sales has gone down from 90% to 40%, allowing them to be less reliant on tourists to fill seats. Waldman wants the fact that they’re the only comedy club on the Upper West Side to be an advantage: “We have a whole area to work with.” To try to appeal to more locals, the club is hosting events such as the upcoming Wine, Jokes, & Jewelry show, which combines stand-up performances with wine tastings and a trunk show from local jewelry designers.

A social media intern constantly monitors the club’s online presence. Zoldan and Waldman see social media as an important way to get their desired audience in the door. “We’re trying to target a younger, hipper, demographic,” Zoldan says. They offer free shots to patrons who promote the club to their friends by checking in on Facebook and foursquare. The performers, often very active on social media, also help promote the club to their fans. Group coupon sites like LivingSocial have been good ways to sell tickets, Waldman says, pointing out that a recent deal with the site sold over 700 tickets.

Martin, on the other hand, remains skeptical of social media’s role: “I’m not sure if that’s all it’s cracked up to be.” He says he’s heard comedians brag about having thousands of Facebook followers, but then none of those supposed fans buy tickets to their shows. He feels similarly wary of group coupon sites, noting that the percentage of sales they take off the top often makes the entire venture only slightly profitable — if at all — for the club. That said, Martin isn’t so dubious of social media that Broadway doesn’t have its own frequently updated website, Facebook page, and Twitter account.

Martin says he has done this long enough to know what works and what doesn’t. He reads the newspaper – the print version, he points out, though he owns an iPad — every morning to keep up to date on economic trends. He doesn’t visit other clubs, preferring instead to focus on his own business. Most of the “innovations” he hears about at other clubs were his ideas years earlier, he says, listing his clubs’ multiple stages, industry showcases, and ethnic theme nights as a few of the concepts he introduced to the local comedy scene.

Stand Up keeps tabs on its competition by constantly comparing its line-ups to other clubs around the city to make sure they’re booking the best and hottest comedians. “At the end of the day,” Waldman says; “it’s who has better comics.” That, he believes, is what will bring customers back – hopefully, with a few friends.

The look of both clubs also illustrates their owners’ philosophical differences. Broadway’s main stage seating is simple and functional. Long tables run parallel to the stage, and the aisles between them are narrow. It may not be the most comfortable seating arrangement, but fits as many people as possible.

Stand Up NY favors a roomier layout. It’s easier to move around, but the seating capacity is just 110 — half of Broadway’s. Since both clubs charge the same for tickets ($15 on weeknights and $20 on weekends) and have a required two-drink minimum purchase, a sold-out show at Broadway will bring in twice as much as one at Stand Up.

Most of both clubs’ earnings come from drink sales. Here again, the clubs differ. They are served in plastic cups at Broadway, while Stand Up favors glasses. This gives Stand Up a more high-end appearance, but it also means that a margarita, which costs $8 at Broadway, costs $12 at Stand Up – which could turn off customers like Moritz Klessmann, who said that while the show was funny, it was also “a bit expensive.” On the other hand, while Broadway audience member Laura De Ponte was fine with the club’s drink prices, she wasn’t thrilled with the cramped seating.

As the old joke begins, a man walks into a bar. The question for Stand Up NY and Broadway Comedy Club’s owners now is, whose method will ensure he’s walking into theirs?