The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 different shows in 322 venues. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place in Edinburgh every August. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has become a world-leading celebration of arts and culture, surpassed only by the Olympics and the World Cup in terms of global ticketed events. As an event it "has done more to place Edinburgh in the forefront of world cities than anything else" according to historian and former chairman of the board, Michael Dale.
The Glee Club is a chain of independent live stand-up comedy and live music venues in the UK. The first Glee Club was opened by Mark Tughan in Birmingham's Chinese Quarter in 1994, the first dedicated comedy club to open in the United Kingdom outside London.
The Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) is the largest stand-alone comedy festival and the second-largest international comedy festival in the world. Established in 1987, it takes place annually in Melbourne over four weeks, typically starting in March and running through to April. The Melbourne Town Hall has served as the festival hub, but performances are held in many venues throughout the city.
An open mic or open mike is a live show at a venue such as a coffeehouse, nightclub, comedy club, strip club, or pub, usually taking place at night, in which audience members may perform on stage whether they are amateurs or professionals, often for the first time or to promote an upcoming performance. As the name suggests, performers are usually provided with a microphone plugged into a PA system so that they can be heard by the audience.
Robin Ince is an English comedian, actor and writer, known for presenting the BBC radio show The Infinite Monkey Cage with physicist Brian Cox, and his stand-up comedy career.
Alan Graham Carr is an English comedian, broadcaster and writer. His breakthrough was in 2001, winning the City Life Best Newcomer of the Year and the BBC New Comedy Awards. In the ensuing years, Carr's career burgeoned on the Manchester comedy circuit before he became known for co-hosting The Friday Night Project (2006–2009) with Justin Lee Collins. This led to the release of a short-lived entertainment show Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong (2008), and he went on to star in the comedy chat show Alan Carr: Chatty Man (2009–2016) which aired on Channel 4. Since 2017, Carr often stands in as a team captain on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. In 2019, he became a judge on RuPaul's Drag Race UK. In 2021, he took over from Fearne Cotton as host of BBC’s Interior Design Masters.
Sam Simmons is an Australian comedian and radio and TV presenter.
Sam Wills is a Timaru, New Zealand prop comic, busker, and clown residing in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. He performs under the name The Boy With Tape On His Face and, more recently, as Tape Face. He was also half of the two-person act Spitroast and sometimes performed under his own name, Sam Wills. He has been featured in the New Zealand International Comedy Festival, the World Buskers Festival, and was a finalist on Season 11 of America's Got Talent.
The Free Fringe is an organisation that promotes free shows during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest arts festival, every August.
Matthew James "Maff" Brown is a British comedian and MC. He is known for his mischievous style of joke-telling. Brown is the founder of the award-winning Outside The Box Comedy Club.
Brendhan Lovegrove is a New Zealand based comedian and public speaker. He performs regularly at The Classic comedy bar on the New Zealand comedy circuit, and has performed in all eight series of TV2's Pulp Comedy. Brendhan has performed at seven galas at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival. He also played the lead role in both seasons of TVNZ's A Night at the Classic.
Kevin Andrew Bridges is a Scottish stand-up comedian. His 2012 television series Kevin Bridges: What's the Story? was based on his stand-up routines.
Paul Foot is an English comedian. Foot is known for his musings, rants, "disturbances" and apparent aversion to pop culture. The Daily Express likened him to "a rare exotic bird", and six national newspapers including The Independent and The Age have described him as "a comedy genius".
Ali Al Sayed is a comedian based in Dubai. Al Sayed was named "one of the most influential comedians in the world" by Toastmasters International Magazine and was recently dubbed the “King of Laughter” by a group of university students competing for an internship with Rolling Stone ME. Al Sayed is the founder of the local entertainment company Viva Arts and is the co-director of Dubomedy Arts, the first and only Comedy and Urban Arts School in the MENA region.
Just the Tonic is a comedy club with branches in Nottingham and Leicester, which also takes acts to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The club opened in Nottingham in 1994, followed by a Leicester branch in 2012.
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.
The Busan International Comedy Festival (BICF) (Korean: 부산국제코미디페스티벌) is an annual comedy festival and cultural event held in Busan, South Korea. Since its establishment in 2013, the festival takes place for four days in late August to early September every year. The BICF includes comedic performances and acts from around the world, featuring sketch shows and stand-up acts. The festival has since grown from its 2013 debut; South Korean teams such as KBS's Gag Concert, SBS's Searching for Laughs and tvN's Comedy Big League are joined by a variety of teams from many different countries, such as the United Kingdom, South Africa, Japan and Italy. The festival is the largest international comedy festival in Asia and the first in South Korea.
The Midlands Comedy Awards are an annual awards ceremony for live comedy performers and comedy clubs based in The Midlands region of England. It also recognises achievement in online comedy. They were founded in 2014 and give out awards in eleven categories every year.
Birmingham Comedy Festival is an annual arts festival in the city of Birmingham. The festival takes place throughout the city for 10 days during October. While primarily focused on stand-up comedy, it also includes films, theatre, cabaret, visual arts, spoken word, music, dance.
Quantum Leopard is a comedy night in London that is hosted and organised by James Ross. It was created in 2015 and has won multiple Chortle Awards. A pay-what-you-want show, it has a mixture of professional and semi-professional comedians and new acts.
