Switch until 31.08.2018.  will receive a 20€ voucher for a tasty meal in a Centimeter Restaurant of your choice.

At FeelSafe, we offer private health insurance to students, professors and researchers coming to Austria.

Today, FeelSafe provides peace of mind to hundreds of international students each year.

We are:

• Completely Online
• Easy to use
• Completely accessible
• All our policies are explained in simple English.

In fact, it’s no exaggeration to say that our policies are THE option for international students in Austria. At a price that’s directly comparable with that of the basic public option, we offer MUCH more: cover that includes everything from repatriation and rescue to private treatment, homeopathy and optometry.

In a little longer than a year, FeelSafe has grown from a new start-up to the preferred choice of health insurance for international students all over Austria, serving hundreds of students from 79 different countries across 67 universities and institutions of higher learning throughout the country.

But how did this transformation happen?

In our next series of newsletters, we will take you through the emerging story of FeelSafe, from its earliest beginnings to today, and onwards into the future. It has been an exciting journey, a rollercoaster ride of ups, downs, and dedicated attention to the customers who have relied on us.

The story begins at Webster University in Vienna, where our young founders embarked on a mission to help and support young international students explore their new home… but we are getting ahead of ourselves!

Next week we will look into the humble origins of FeelSafe and explore how it became THE solution for international students in Austria.

Last week, we described the position FeelSafe currently occupies in the market, in which it provides the best health insurance solutions for hundreds of international students and researchers across Austria. This week, we take a deep dive into the founding of the company: how and when and why the young start-up came into being.

In 2012, the founders of FeelSafe, who were studying at Webster University in Vienna, noticing the difficulties many new international students had finding their way in a new city, decided to set up a system to help them with all the needs new students have that aren’t answered by the university itself.

This approach, in which students could directly help other students, was influenced by the FeelSafe team’s own experiences studying overseas – because new students don’t just need help with their academics, but also need help setting up bank accounts, dealing with the visa process, and just finding the day-to-day needs of life: a good hairdresser, the markets, the sights of the city.

Originally run out of an office at the university, the company soon branched out online, under the name Feels Like Home. Despite initial difficulties with website design and service, the positive feedback that the team received in those early days encouraged them, and demonstrated to them that the concept of helping new international students with adapting to Austria was a sound one.

The highlight of these early days was winning a state-run competition, Impuls XL, for creative concepts that help society. With the funds from this victory, the early FeelSafe team was able to expand their concept, and begin to concentrate on an area that they had found was highly important for new international students: their health insurance.

But more on that next week – stay tuned!

Last week we described the origins of FeelSafe, as a company concerned with student welfare and making sure that international students are welcomed into their new home in Austria. This week we look at the way FeelSafe came to specialise in student health insurance and provide the best health insurance option for international students and researchers.

One of the great advantages of the early days of working out of Webster University was the ability to receive immediate feedback on the needs of international students in Austria, and thus to gauge how the new start-up could be of most help to them. Consistently, students raised problems they had with accessing health insurance through GKK, the Austrian public health insurer.

Accessing health insurance through GKK was often a mini-nightmarefor international students: newly arrived in the country, and often without well-developed skills in German, international students had to wade through the morass of Austrian bureaucracy, navigating the complex terrain of German-language questions and contracts in person at the local office, and then waiting up to three weeks to receive a confirmation that they had in fact been successful in receiving the coverage necessary to get their visa.

These delays and difficulties meant that in some cases students were even forced to leave the country and re-enter before getting their visa – an expensive and frustrating process!

With FeelSafe, everything is simple and in English, and confirmation is almost always sent within 24 hours, meaning students no longer have to worry about receiving their visas! Some of the feedback that the FeelSafe team is proudest of is that from students who, up until they found our website, were tempted to give up on the student experience in Austria. With our support, however, they were able to plunge back into what, for many, is one of the best experiences of their lives.

Last week we looked at how FeelSafe offers international researchers and students so much more than the public option in Austria. This week we take a look at how that came to be.

In order to offer students easily accessible health insurance, FeelSafe partnered with a family-run Insurance Agentur Herf to offer students the cheapest and best private package available, making FeelSafe THE common-sense option for international students!

FeelSafe also at this time adapted to become a purely online service, as this allowed them to provide this fantastic coverage to international students not just in Vienna, but throughout Austria.

Getting this deal approved took a lot of time and effort from the FeelSafe team, as online insurance hasn’t been offered to students before, and the MA35 (the agency in charge of granting residence permits and visas to students) was very unused to dealing with these kinds of products, despite their clear advantages.
After extended negotiations, FeelSafe has emerged as the standard model of private health insurance for international students, and even plays a role as the textbook example at MA35 of private health insurance.
Today, hundreds of happy customers later, FeelSafe is proud to have served international students and researches across Austria with reliable and comprehensive health insurance coverage, and to have paved the way to easier, better coverage for many years to come.

To join the FeelSafe story, look at our website, to look over the many different packages we offer students. Follow us too on our blog on our website, to read new and interesting stories about the student experience in Austria, and of course on Facebook.

To you, our valued customers, and to a successful future together!

We hope you enjoyed your Rollercoaster ride

Vienna has been named the best city in the world for quality
of living, according to a new survey.
Now in its 20th year, the annual Mercer Quality of Living survey has crowned it the best place in the world for the ninth year in a row.

Slagin Parakatil, who carried out the survey, told:
“Vienna is the cultural, political and economic centre of Austria, and scores highly in a number of categories.
Among others, the city provides a safe and stable environment for expatriates to live in; it has an extensive offering of international consumer goods, a high level of public utilities and transportation facilities, and good recreational facilities.
All of the above combined resulted in Vienna being placed top.”

Eight of the top 10 (10th place had two joint winners) cities in 2018 are European, with Auckland, Vancouver and Sydney representing other continents.

This year, Mercer also analysed cities which had seen the biggest jump in quality of living over the last 20 years.
In Europe, Sarajevo came out on top with an increase of 21.5 %, followed by Bratislava (19.1) and Belgrade (18.3), while Vienna also featured in the top 10 with a jump of 5.2 %.
Other cities around the world which enjoyed a notable climb in quality of living included Havana (6.5), Dubai (12.2), Maputo (15), Shanghai (15.7) and New Delhi (13.8).
For the first time, Mercer also released a ranking on City Sanitation analysing cities’ waste removal and sewage infrastructure, levels of infectious disease, air pollution, water availability and quality. Honolulu came out on top of this one, followed by Helsinki, Ottawa and Minneapolis.
Despite Brexit, London remains an attractive location for companies to locate their employees, according to the company.

“Cities in the UK continue to rank highly for quality of living, and remain attractive destinations for multinationals and their employees,” said Mercer’s Kate Fitzpatrick in a statement.

?? London – the highest ranked UK city – scores top marks in areas like access to public transport, and the variety and quality of theatres and restaurants, but has lower scores for air pollution and traffic congestion.

Also, we included this list of the top 10 cities.

 The Quality of Living top 10 2018

1. Vienna, Austria ??
2. Zurich, Switzerland ??
3. Auckland, New Zealand ??  
4. Munich, Germany ??
5. Vancouver, Canada ??
6. Dusseldorf, Germany ??
7. Frankfurt, Germany ??
8. Geneva, Switzerland ??
9. Copenhagen, Denmark ??
10. Basel, Switzerland ??; Sydney, Australia ??

Morning routines are a vital component of our daily lives. Without them, we’re only setting ourselves up for continuous failure. Now is the time to implement a morning routine as part of your organizational domain.

Depending upon your livelihood, the length and depth of your morning routine will differentiate incredibly. Here are four elements anyone can easily incorporate into their mornings to enhance the quality of your day.

Drink More Water

Many people neglect hydration like it’s a new trendy fashion timepiece. It’s absolutely imperative to ensure you’re consuming enough water for increased focus and productivity. Starting your day dehydrated, will only cause complications as the day progresses; make sure every morning consists of drinking a minimum of two cups (500ml) of water. Personally, I start my day by drinking an entire litre.

Forgetting to drink water throughout the day will happen during busy days, if you start the day strong, with a quantity that will secure you throughout your hectic schedule, then success will be yours.

Our bodies are primarily composed of water. We cannot function properly without adequate water intake, so make it certain that you start your day with an influx of water to get your blood flow pumping for optimal performance.

Water is life. Restore and revitalize your senses by providing its lifeline.

Earn Your Breakfast

Vienna is a city that’s known for its beautiful scenery and breathtaking opulence. Having twenty-three different districts gives you a lot of options for a quick, brisk walk. If you need to drive to a different sector of the city to shakeup the areas you walk through—do it!

One of the most culturally rich cities in the world must be appreciated by foot. Understand the terrain, absorb the energy, and admire the contemporary architecture that makes Vienna unique and historic. Develop numerous routes, keep a swift pace, and begin walking for roughly twenty-twenty five minutes. Increasing your heart rate boosts stamina and hunger—which means a more satiating breakfast.

Nobody eats without putting in the work. Walking will direct you towards a pathway that will show you new avenues of growth, progression, and hope.

Take in the city, cherish what you see, be thankful and enjoy your mornings by creating an entirely new perspective.

Prioritize Each Task

Daily goals and plans should have been written down and thought about the day before. Preparing for tomorrow today is a certain method to get ahead. Now, you are left with delegating the significance of each task.

Think about what goal will be the hardest to complete and start with that one. The sooner you complete what’s hard, the easier it will be to tackle all of your other goals.

Don’t get discouraged if you wake up the following morning and have daily goals left on your list from the prior day, as long as you diligently pursued a goal you considered urgent and got it done, that’s all that truly matters.

Love Yourself More

We have one life to create our own world full of greatness and happiness, and loving ourselves is the only way to get there. Be gracious and humble for everything you have. The simple things in life are what show us the blessings of our own majesty.

Practice positive self-talk by telling yourself you will make miracles happen, and that today will be a successful one. Our worst days illuminate our greatest opportunities. Stay on track; create a mindset that’s not only impenetrable, but receptive.

Listening and trusting yourself is how advancement is curated at an unbelievable rate. And by creating positive vibes within your own mind, you reinforce self-love, self-respect, and self-preservation. And these are the key elements to earning more, being more, and ultimately, seeing more.

Vienna is a city of universities. As befits a city that has long been associated with intellectuals and the life of the mind, and one that has been a home to Freud, Wittgenstein, Mahler, and many other luminaries, Vienna has a strong culture of tertiary education. Not including Colleges of Applied Science (Fachhochschulen) Vienna is host to sixteen separate universities, both public and private.

The largest universities in Vienna are the eponymous Vienna University, the Technical University, and the University of Economic and Business. Between them, these universities teach almost 150,000 students. The student population in Vienna is heavily international, lending studying in Vienna a cosmopolitan, diverse feel. 25,000 international students study at the University of Vienna alone. (and, of course, being international students, need health insurance in order to receive their student visa o Asutria – a service which FeelSafe provides with pride and efficiency).

Apart from the large public universities, Vienna also hosts many smaller specialised private universities. The Music and Arts University, as the name suggests, is specialised for teaching music – a perfect fit for Vienna, which has long been renowned for its culture of classical music, and as the home of Mahler, Strauss, and Schönberg. Speaking of famous Viennese names, the private Sigmund Freud University is also located here in the Austrian capital. It specialises in teaching psychotherapy, and is the only university in the word to offer a degree in the subject at an undergraduate level.

Vienna is, therefore, an excellent city to study in as an international student, as it offers both a high quality of education and a diversity of specialities. Regardless of whether an international student chooses to study at a private or a public university, however, they must secure a student visa within a short period of time after arriving here in Austria. Before the visa can be issued, an international student needs to be able to demonstrate two things: their enrolment in an Austrian educational institution, and evidence that they are covered by appropriate student health insurance.

Amidst all the hubbub of the first few weeks of arriving in Austria and diving into your studies, it can be difficult to remember to arrange for student health insurance before the crucial date by which you must apply for your visa. This difficulty often results in students needing to leave the country altogether and then re-enter it, often during the middle of studies, in order to conform to the regulations are health insurance and student visas. Luckily, FeelSafe is aware of these difficulties, and our simple online registration allows you to bypass any such difficulties and immerse yourself in Vienna, the city of universities. It’s just one way FeelSafe is making Austrian student health insurance faster, better and easier!

One of the most important factors to consider when moving internationally to study is cost. Moving overseas comes with many predictable costs – the costs of airfares, tuition, and possibly the costs of storing your goods at home. Less obvious to an outsider, however, are the day-to-day costs of living in a place like Vienna. In this blog entry, we hope to outline some of the costs that face prospective international students here in Vienna.

Thankfully, FeelSafe is one of the most affordable options available for a student’s mandatory health insurance – so you’re free to spend the money you save on the little luxuries that Vienna has to offer!

Eating out in Vienna can be somewhat expensive. Vienna is one of the more expensive cities in Europe, apart from London or Paris, and a normal meal out can cost from €10-15. A pint of good beer in a cosy Viennese pub, a not-to-be-neglected speciality, will cost you from €4-5, and a Viennese coffee somewhere in the range of €4.

A good way to save some money as a student however is to use the range of relatively inexpensive supermarkets that dot the capital, including Hofer (ALDI) and BILLA. There are also many good, inexpensive vegetable markets, which, as well as supplying a wide range of groceries, provide a great experience for a foreigner, and a good opportunity to practice your workaday German!

But if you are going to eat in, you’ll need a place to do it! Renting a room in Vienna for a student would normally cost between €300-700. There is also a broad range of dormitories available to students, which can simplify your choice of accommodation. Contacting your uni is the best way to discover which dormitories they recommend as being affordable and close to campus.

The public transportation in Vienna is superb, with an extensive network of buses, trams, and underground light rail (U-Bahn) connecting almost every corner of the city. During the day, these services come almost every 5 minutes, making getting around Vienna a breeze. A semester pass for a student under 26 costs only €75 when bought online, lasts 5 months and provides unlimited access to the entire Vienna public transport network. A single ticket costs €1.20.

Vienna doesn’t have to be too expensive if you budget cleverly. One of the best ways to save yourself money is to get your student health insurance with FeelSafe. We provide your student health insurance (which is mandatory if you want to study in Austria) at only a fraction more than the public option, and provide a broad range of coverage, giving you complete peace of mind. Grab a policy with FeelSafe today, and start your stay off right!

We are the first insurance company to ever do this.

You are going to either love us or hate us after reading this.

Health Insurance MYTH BUSTING

Health Insurance: THE One Thing You Need as a Foreign Student in Austria ?? 

If you’re coming to Austria as a student or researcher, you’ll likely have done your homework. You know that the quality of education is excellent, and that life as a student can be sweet, too. The excitement of living independently in a foreign city, meeting interesting new people at parties – newcomers take full advantage of an exciting European lifestyle.
But there are certain things you can’t know before arriving, like the Austrian bureaucracy! While life here is so enjoyable, it also comes with a major drawback:
The bureau of immigration, otherwise known as the dreaded MA35.
Forget exams, this is the one thing you need to really prepare for as a foreign student in Austria!

Bureaucracy: Blessing or Curse?

The government organizes all aspects of daily life. Savvy locals have a lifetime to figure out the labyrinth bureaucracy – foreign students don’t have that luxury. You probably expect someone regularly dealing with internationals to be experienced and capable of servicing them, but you oftentimes encounter a stony-faced civil servant unable or unwilling to speak English – which usually happens when applying for your prized residency permit or visa which has to include a health insurance policy.
Austria has a very specific requirement when it comes to international student insurance, and even a very comprehensive coverage package purchased may not necessarily be accepted. How do you solve the somewhat overwhelming topic of insurance which is full of horror stories?

Focusing specifically on the issues international students face on this topic, the experts at FeelSafe.at present:

Health Insurance MYTH BUSTING

Myth 1: Only the public health insurance is accepted for your residence permit or visa.

Universities, friends and even public institutions might tell you that the public insurance is the only accepted choice. This is a myth and not true. For a long time there was no clear guideline of what a health insurance has to offer in order to be accepted and therefore, to avoid unclarity, all the students were sent to the public insurance.  But since 31.01.2017 there is finally a clear regulation of what a health insurance has to cover for the visa and residence permit (first time and renewal).

Even a very comprehensive coverage package purchased may not necessarily be accepted if it doesn’t follow all the guidelines, and not all providers offering coverage for foreign students are actually accepted. So how do you know which ones are accepted?

To save yourself a lot of time and stress, there is one private insurance that offers better levels of care and is guaranteed by the interior ministry to be accepted for your residence permit and visa application (first time and renewal) – FeelSafe.at.It takes out the mystery of whether or not the MA35 will accept the policy.

Myth 2: Private insurance is super expensive

Public health insurance offers decent coverage but has limitations such as only access to public doctors
and missing benefits that are important for international students (e.g. transportation back to home-country if needed, etc.), which is why many students choose to go private. With other private insurers this comes at a steep price.

FeelSafe.at, however, provides comprehensive coverage that’s affordable. In fact, FeelSafe.at costs virtually the same as public health insurance, with better coverage!

Myth 3: The insurance industry is not service friendly

Contracts can be confusing, complicated and contain hidden clauses. Since insurers try to sell you additional products, making them easy to understand simply isn’t in their interest.
FeelSafe.at understands that service should be swift and friendly. Whether it’s their live chat, hotline or in-person customer service, everything is in English. There are no up-sales, you get your ready-made insurance as approved by the government – easy, simple and fast.

Myth 4: The insurance industry is not digitalized

Another scary thing about buying insurance is that it’s incredibly complicated – partly because the industry is not digitalized. Processing takes weeks and you need to be physically present to get the process started, which includes many translated documents and painstakingly completed forms.

FeelSafe.at lets you purchase insurance in five minutes online and only takes one business day to process.

Myth 5: You will sign a contract in German

In addition to being extremely difficult to understand,
contracts are always in German, which means that foreign students are forced to sign contracts they can’t read. FeelSafe.at is the only health insurance that doesn’t require you to take a leap of faith.
Contracts are clearly explained and also available to download in English. Legally, still the one in German is signed, but there is no need to sign something you don’t understand!

FeelSafe.at busts the myths, so only the facts remain. It’s 100% guaranteed to be accepted and offers all the benefits foreign students need: access to medical treatments, home visits by private doctors who speak your language, guaranteed coverage for stays in public hospitals, repatriation and more!

Shortly put, it’s the best product for the best price, reliable, easy, fast, all online and fully in English.

Success in Vienna as an expat can be a long and daunting road, but few have achieved it more profoundly than our most recent interviewee, Gretl Satorius. An American expat living in Vienna, Satorius has thrown herself into the theatrical and academic scenes of the Austrian capital. Since arriving in Vienna in 2006, she’s written an award-winning documentary screenplay, is pursuing a doctorate degree in opera dramaturgy and is even the creator of the city’s top-rated audio tour! Read our interview with the impressive woman below, and find out about her incredible life, as well as her top tips for settling into a successful life in Austria.

• Tell us a bit about yourself! Where are you from, and what brought you to Vienna?

I’m originally from the Midwest (Illinois and Wisconsin), but mostly grew up in the California High Desert, just south of Death Valley. It wasn’t a terribly interesting place to live–especially for someone with a budding passion for theatre–so I escaped to Chicago for college. I went to The Theatre School at DePaul University and majored in Dramaturgy (basically the study of how to research, analyze, contextualize, and create theatre). In the fall of my senior year I spent a semester abroad with IES Vienna. It was amazing; my eyes were opened to the world of opera, and I ended up coming back a year later to work for IES as a student assistant. I’ve been here ever since, and am currently working on my doctoral dissertation at the Uni Wien in Opera Dramaturgy.

• How long have you been here, and what do you do here?

I’ve been living in Vienna since January of 2006, and I’ve largely spent the last 11 years studying and working in opera. That said, I’m also a writer, and my work while living in Vienna is a bit of a mixed bag: children’s books, a documentary film, a comic book, multimedia performances, opera libretti, song cycles, scholarly articles, stage adaptations, a commercial magic show in London’s West End, a new show at Glyndebourne this autumn…even a Vienna city tour app. In fact, ‘Gretl Goes: Vienna’ has become the city’s top-rated audio tour, which I’m quite proud of. It’s a product of my deep interest in Vienna’s history and several years of experience showing people around the capital and surrounding wine regions.

• What has surprised you most about Vienna?

Something that has repeatedly occurred to me in my research–both for the tour app and for my studies–is the degree to which Austrian history has determined world history. It’s astounding; events that are seemingly completely unrelated can often be traced back in some way to something that happened in Vienna. But even more surprising, perhaps, is that so few people outside of Austria recognize how historically important this city truly is. I interact with tourists quite a bit, and the one thing that almost everyone says is that they had no idea how much Vienna has to offer and wish they’d scheduled more time here.

• What’s your favourite thing about this city?

I could go on for ages about how living in Vienna is like walking through an open-air museum, that there’s always some kind of interesting exhibition or performance going on, that nature is ever-present, that the arts scene is vibrant…but I think those qualities are largely due to the city’s accessibility and mixed zoning. Vienna is supremely walkable, its public transit system is top-notch, and space is shared between residential, commercial, and cultural. Being able to spontaneously call up a friend for coffee at a museum and meet there 10 minutes later is not something that most people in the world can do. I recently visited my family in Los Angeles, and could not believe how intolerant I’ve become of long commutes and massive blocks of residential zoning! If you need to factor in a 45-minute drive to get anywhere, it really has an impact on your life–everything from how you socialize, to how much exercise you get, to the food you buy. This is why American food is so packed full of preservatives: because people live so far from grocery stores, drive to and from work, and only do the shopping once a week. Here, taking public transit is usually the fastest way to get around town, and you pass countless grocery stores and bakeries along the way.

• What do you miss most from home?

Other than seeing American family and friends on a more regular basis, there’s not a lot, to be honest–most of the food items are available at the specialty stores, and it seems like every few months some ex-pat is opening an American-style BBQ place or brewery to satisfy those cravings.

Having said that, as someone who grew up in Southern California, I do miss authentic Mexican food. I’m not talking the kind of fajitas and breakfast burritos you get at TexMex chain restaurants–I mean chilaquiles, empanadas, mole coloradito… My neighbors back home used to make insane amounts of tamales around Christmas time; I really missed that, so a few years ago I convinced some of my friends to make a huge batch with me, and it’s become a yearly tradition.

• What would be your advice to anyone considering moving here?

I think the one thing that newcomers probably need to hear is to plan on some administrative woes. Whether it’s dealing with the MA35 (Immigration Office), university enrollment, lease paperwork, or even club membership, bureaucracy in Austria is a baroque, labyrinthine institution that can be immensely frustrating. Practically anything having to do with any kind of official paperwork needs multiple signatures and stamps and requires an inordinate amount of time to accomplish. You just have to resign yourself to the fact that this is how things work here.

So if your residency permit application hits a snag, don’t stress–problems are pro forma and always a part of the process. Plus, once you get used to how the system works, there are a few ways to grease the wheels: include your academic titles on everything (especially doctoral titles–you’ll never sit in a waiting room again). Read up on the requirements of your paperwork and don’t be afraid to push back if a Beamter/Beamtin tells you something is required that’s not on the list. Speak in German whenever possible (this goes a long way, especially if you’re on top of your “Höflichkeitsformen”). And commiserate with the person behind the desk (“I know this is really frustrating–thank you for helping me with it”). Getting paperwork in order tends to require a lot of legwork and a lot of motivation on your part–but the system is not impenetrable if you strike the right balance of polite and stubborn.

Patrick Lamb was born in Sheffield, but has lived in Vienna since 1999 as an illustrator, teacher and translator. Since this, his interest in comedy has steadily grown, performing sets all over Europe. Now, Patrick organises the English Comedy Night in Vienna and Graz, and has written this piece to tell us all about it!

How English Comedy Night started:

Dave Thompson, an experienced comedian from the UK, offered me the chance to perform in a regular comedy night he organises in Budapest. We discussed the potential for a similar English comedy night in Vienna, with UK comedians flying over to do both shows. I agreed to organise and compère a monthly show, starting in April of 2016.
The May show saw Aera, our venue in the 1st district, already filled to capacity and it has been that way ever since.

How the shows work:

I begin the show, warm up the audience and then introduce the opening act. The opener then does the remainder of the first half. After a short break I welcome everyone back and then bring on our headliner. The headliners are very established, successful comedians who also perform regularly on television and radio.

Promotion:

We advertise the shows on Facebook and through the Vienna Internations comedy group. Various online expat communities have been kind enough to help us get the word out. We also use traditional print flyers and posters and have had mentions in Metropole, the English-language magazine, the Kurier and soon, the Falter. By now, I think a decent number of people are aware of English Comedy Night.

What’s next:

We’ve reached the point at which we need to move to a larger venue, so in January we will perform our first show in the Kulisse – with double the number of seats, so I will be busy in between now and then publicising that.

We expanded to Graz in October. Okello Dunkley, a comedian from New York opened for us. He’s now producing and performing comedy in Vienna, too. Check him out at the Tunnel in the 8th district.

The audience:

The guests who come to English Comedy Night are from all over the world, and that is really exciting! We have audience members from 30-40 different countries. The demographic tends to comprise of well-educated professionals around 35-45 years old – a nice bunch of people to entertain! They are also mostly very cultured and well-behaved. Little or no heckling, which is something I can’t stand.

The comedians:

We have had terrific comics coming over to perform. The headliners in particular are much lauded talents: Dave Thompson, Geoff Boyz, Mark Maier and Geoff Whiting. John Moloney asked me on Twitter if he could come over and do the show. He was over in September with Sally-Anne Hayward – that was a great night!

What I have learnt:

One of the benefits for me about organising English Comedy Night is watching the other comedians perform. Many of them have been very kind with their advice on how I can improve. So far I have mostly developed my act here in Vienna, isolated from the UK comedy circuit, which is where fresh talent tend to learn and grow as performers. So that has been very important for my work.

The challenge:

It has been challenging to write new material every month, but it has given me the chance to do more current affairs material. Performing regularly has helped me to become more comfortable on stage, more relaxed. I really enjoy doing the show.

Upcoming shows:

English Comedy Night will be in Bar28 in Graz on the 7th of November and then in Vienna, in Aera, Gonzagagasse 11, 1010 Wien, on the 8th of November.

More details can be found on the Vienna English Comedy Night Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/ViennaEnglishComedyNight/

I am also looking forward to ‘Gossip’ – my new, third solo programme which premieres in Aera on the 17th of November at 20:00.

www.patricklamb-comedy.com

• International student health insurance
• 100% guaranteed. The health insurance in accepted from all authorities (e.g MA35)
• Same prices
• Full guarantee of cost coverage for stays in public hospitals in a multi-bed room
• Medical treatment (public doctors)
• Brand medicines and generic medicines
• Physiotherapy, ergo-therapy, logopedics
• Dental treatments