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I’m not a fan of hackneyed ‘oxford dictionary defines’ introductions to articles and speeches but, in this instance, I think it’s necessary to confess my ignorance, hoping I’m not the only one out there who didn’t know what spruiking was.

Lots of odd images and definitions came to mind: the garnisher of restaurant meals (’Hey, kitchen-hand! Spruik that plate for service.’), a speciality cleaner or redecorator of some sort (sounds like spruce), kid’s shenanigans (’You’ve been out spruiking all day, haven’t you?’). And it went on like that.

So, encarta.msn.com defines spruik as follows: ‘Australia. To promote goods, services or a cause by addressing people in a public place (humorous).’

The definition can be applied to a healthy portion of the advertising industry, all of it if you tweak the meaning. Television is as public a place as any, in a private sort of way. Think Franco Cozzo and Ken Bruce: funny at first but capable of driving us all completely mad. Think shonky get-rich-quick moguls who generously help you part with your hard-earned savings through seminars and schemes. Are preachers and televangelists spruikers? Debatable, but that’s a whole other article.

Subscribing charity workers fall under the spruiking tag too. On the street, they can turn a ‘few seconds of your time’ into half an hour, albeit for a good cause. Then there are microphone-wielding earbashers who spout bargains outside department stores. They sound like wedding MCs if you don’t automatically block them out
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Last in this basic overview of spruiks are the flyer-wavers. You see them everywhere: street corners, in front of buildings, at the airport, anywhere with steady foot traffic. Mood dictates reaction. Sometimes, we take a flyer out of interest or empathy; sometimes, we walk past with a ‘no thanks’ or without making eye contact. Sometimes, we glare, shake our heads; sometimes, we tell them where to go.

Eventually, it became clear why I didn’t know the term (besides the fact that my vocabulary needs work). I already had a name for spruikers cemented in my stubborn brain: annoying bastards. That’s a bit harsh, my conscience chides, we all need to work, which is mostly true. And what about telemarketers?

Every year, Melbourne International Comedy Festival generates a new breed of flyer-waving spruikers into ephemeral existence. Whether outside the multitude festival venues or walking with the erratic flow of Melbourne’s streets, festival-goer or not, you’ll see and hear them peddling their promotional wares.

Orange festival flags wave north up Swanston Street. It’s seven and dark already. The cloudless sky adds to the autumn chill, and Town Hall’s second empire architecture is dressed up for the funny season.

Three disco balls hang from each side of the colonnade and spin freckled light over the flagstones below. Stage lights rest above the second floor balcony, ready to transform the hall. The lanterns, branching from the facade, shine their coloured light, and giant orange boards, painted with street directions and that arrow-tailed, curl-headed, gaping-mouthed, dog-person logo thingy, adorn the columns.

The city is its usual self, a million moving voices talking at once. Packed trams clunk over intersections, car horns blare their complaints, the little green walk-man ticks pedestrians across streets.

They seem to be the only ones standing still. They’re not though. The city moves around them as they bounce on the balls of their freezing feet and offer flyers with an outstretched hand to the stream of people passing over the portico. They work in small clusters or alone, either side of the colonnade, in between its columns or on the steps in front of the doorman’s post. Some smile; others talk above the city hum.

‘Stand up comedy show?’, ‘Interested in stand up?’, ‘Show at Hotel Generic Name.’

Here, it feels different from the norm. It’s as if the festival’s comic spirit has been instilled in passers-by. There’re plenty of smiles, even with refusals. People take flyers and actually read them with interest. Some stop to talk. Directions, information, freebies, whatever: the spruikers oblige the chance to chat with animated hand gestures and jovial gusto.

A zealous young man, long curly locks and MICF lanyard, crosses Swanston Street to the Town Hall corner. He’s an Arts student, chosen to shoot a documentary for comedian Michael Connell, and is tonight handing out free tickets to the show.

‘It’s been good to see how it all works behind the scenes,’ he says.

He’ll be spruiking most nights of the festival, armed with an honest face and a fistful of tickets.

‘Sometimes, you get bad reactions. At first, it can get you down, but you get used to it. Mostly, people are friendly,’ says Sydney comedian Justin D Lodge, who is handing out flyers by the colonnade for his show Life, Death and Komodo Dragons. He’s been in the stand-up game for three years, and this is his first MICF.

‘Selling your own show can be seen as selling your soul. Most comedians do, unless they can afford to pay people to do it.’

The public react warmly to Lodge’s sociable grin. He jokes with them, tells them about the show, and scribbles on a few flyers to get them in for free. You couldn’t generate better pre-show word-of-mouth.

These aren’t your average spruikers, and their wares go beyond mundane, hand-delivered junk-mail. Most are volunteers, comedians, directing you to entertainment, walking and talking festival guides with a penchant for conversation.

If you like a good laugh, and there aren’t many who don’t, then it’ll be worth your while to stop for a few seconds (not charity subscriber seconds) and see how a spruiker can help you out. And anyway, at least they don’t call while you’re eating dinner.