The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2024 spanned 25 days and featured more than 51,446 scheduled performances of 3,317 different shows across 262 venues from 58 different countries. Of those shows, the largest section was comedy, representing almost 40% of shows, followed by theater, which was 26.6% of shows.
Just for Laughs is a comedy festival that is held every July in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1983, it is the largest international comedy festival in the world. In addition to the festivals themselves, Just for Laughs also developed, produced, and distributed other forms of comedy entertainment, such as television programming.
James Anthony Patrick Carr is a British-Irish comedian, presenter, writer and actor. He is known for his rapid-fire deadpan delivery of one-liners which have been known to offend some people. He began his comedy career in 1997, and he has regularly appeared on television as the host of Channel 4 panel shows such as 8 Out of 10 Cats, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and The Big Fat Quiz of the Year.
The Edinburgh Comedy Awards are presented to the comedy shows deemed to have been the best at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. Established in 1981, they are the most prestigious comedy prize in the United Kingdom. The awards have been directed and produced by Nica Burns since 1984.
A comedy festival is a celebration of comedy with many shows, venues, comedy performers and is held over a specific block of time. Normally, each festival has a diverse range of comedy themes and genres.
Thomas Francis Gleeson is an Australian stand-up comedian, writer, television and radio presenter. Gleeson formerly co-hosted The Weekly with Charlie Pickering alongside Judith Lucy and currently hosts Hard Quiz and Taskmaster Australia.
Zoe Ann Lyons is a British comedian and TV presenter.
Joshua Michael Thomas is an Australian comedian, actor, and writer. In 2005, he won the Melbourne International Comedy Festival's Raw Comedy Competition. He has since appeared on television numerous times, including as a regular and Generation Y team captain on Network 10's Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation. In 2013, Thomas created the award-winning ABC2 and Pivot television series Please Like Me, which he also co-wrote and starred in.
Hannah Gadsby is an Australian comedian, writer, and actor. They began their career in Australia after winning the national final of the Raw Comedy competition for new comedians in 2006. In 2018, their show Nanette on Netflix won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special and a Peabody Award.
Geraldine Mary Quinn is a songwriter, guitarist, singer, comedian and actor based in Melbourne, Australia. She won the Best Emerging Cabaret Artiste award at the 2006 Green Room Awards (Australia), and was nominated for Original Songs.
Anywhere Festival is an annual Brisbane based festival for performance anywhere but traditional theatre spaces. The first anywhere-but-in-a-traditional-theatre concept was brought to Brisbane in 2011 by creative director Paul Osuch. His theory is that we need to take traditional story-telling out of theatre buildings and back to where life really takes place, in the community.
Bob Slayer is an Edinburgh Comedy Award winning comedian, musician and promoter. He has been part of a new economic model for venues at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe which has made the event fairer and more affordable for performers and audiences. Acts that have performed at his venues have won and been nominated for a number of prestigious awards.
Nakkiah Lui is an Australian actor, writer and comedian. She is a young leader in the Aboriginal Australian community.
John-Luke Roberts is a British stand-up comedian, writer, actor and performer.
Lindsay Webb is an Australian comedian based in Brisbane. Originally getting his break in radio Webb has been performing stand-up comedy all over the world since 1998, including major comedy festivals such as Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Adelaide Fringe.
Sarah Keyworth is an English stand-up comedian who began a career in comedy in 2012, eventually going full-time in 2018 after being nominated for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards. Keyworth has appeared on television comedy shows such as Roast Battle, The Now Show, The Dog Ate My Homework, Mock the Week, 8 Out of 10 Cats, and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown .
