“This is the livelihood for many people, so I needed to figure out a way to make money,” said Marianne Ways, the booker for Butterboy, a Monday-night stalwart at Littlefield in Brooklyn. She moved the show, with hosts Jo Firestone, Maeve Higgins and Aparna Nancherla, online early, testing a free night on March 16 before charging $5 for the following week. She sold 812 tickets, which is far more than her 150-seat performing space could hold. Drawing a global audience helped, but 60 percent of the patrons were still from New York. These staggering numbers did not last, though, as competition increased. The audience dropped by roughly 50 percent each of the following two weeks before stabilizing at around 260 with a little less than half from New York.

Ways has encouraged comedians to not just talk about the quarantine. She also learned that good lighting and staying stationary is key. She also arranged for performers to hear laughter from others on the bill if they wanted, which made a difference in the absence of an audience response. “It’s never going to be perfect, but it’s an experiment,” she said. “We’re doing our best.”

Others are following suit. Dan Goodman, who produces Shtick a Pole in It, a seven-year-old East Village show that alternates stand-up and pole dancing burlesque, initially balked at the idea of performing online. But once it became clear the lockdown would last for months, he figured he had nothing to lose. For his April 25 show, he will charge $10, less than half his usual fee, and the performers will be able to see the audience on Zoom, but not hear the crowd until the show is over and the applause is unmuted.

Moving live shows online presents a number of challenges, none more formidable than how to replace audience laughter. Some clubs charging tickets for new shows, like West Side and Eastville, began offering conversations between comics, instead of standup sets. Both still put faces of the crowd on the screen. At West Side, you can even direct-message other members of the crowd, giving it the feel of a comedy club mixed with a dating app. Watching shows on both platforms, I found myself drawn to the audience as much as the comedians.