A festival (?) called the Boston Calling Comedy Experience aims to bring the big names in this year's proceedings. Hannibal Buress, Tig Notaro, Pete Holmes, Eugene Mirman and more are slated to appear at the annual festival. Boston Calling -- which begins Friday, May 26th and goes until the 28th -- also has big name bands joining in like Chance the Rapper, Solange, Danny Brown and other non-single acts. Check out the website for details and tickets
Chris Hardwick's latest gig is a multifacted festival
Hardworking Hardwick Chris is up to his hard wick in word. You'd think after recently getting married that he'd take more than a week or two off from life itself. But his ethic must be admired, regardless if you like him or not. The comedian/podcast host/talk show host/insomniac already has his next job lined up.
Hardwick announced via Twitter today that he's throwing a festival. It's not a regular old comedy or music festival. The ID10T Festival (that's a zero in there) will feature comedy, music and comic books. Bands like Weezer and The Mowgli's will join comics like Michael Che and Nikki Glaser as well as signings from comic book artists and something called a Interactive Comic Conival. The festival goes down in Silicon Valley from June 24th to the 25th. And cosplay is welcome if that's your thing.
ANNOUNCEMENT: I'm making a music/comedy/comic-con festival called ID10T in Silicon Valley 6/24&25! Tix & info: https://t.co/cFaQF6Ik5d pic.twitter.com/EA37FpFUcf
— Chris Hardwick (@hardwick) March 6, 2017
SXSW gets a bigger comedy slate, podcasts galore
South By Southwest is almost upon us and its keynotes are going to be tremendous this year. Three weeks ago, the festival announced that the cast of Veep, Bob Odenkirk and Seth Rogen were among some of the speakers. They made good on their promise to announce more. Now funny people like Janeane Garofalo, Wyatt Cenac, and Michael Ian Black are joining the fracas. Additionally, all the podcasts like Comedy Bang! Bang!, improv4humans, and Hollywood Handbook will be there. The full line up can be found below and other details can be seen on the SXSW website.
Comedy Central finally gets a comedy festival
Comedy and festivals are like peanut butter and jelly: they're destined to be with one another. While there is already a dearth of comedy festivals, one comedy company has been missing their own gathering or sorts. That ends today as Deadline reports that Comedy Central has teamed up with Bonnaroo and Outside Lands creator Superfly to start a festival of its own. But this isn't just a stand up festival; there will be sketch shows and podcasts too. And for some reason music (it's only fitting because there's comedy at Bonnaroo now). Comedy Central president Kent Alterman does point out that this festival is geared toward the comedy fan though. This isn't a comedy channel's first foray into festival life. Both HBO and TBS ran their own.
Riot LA is going to be the biggest 2017 comedy festival, riot in LA
Fans of Los Angeles and its comedy festivals need not worry any longer. The annual Riot LA comedy festival takes place in late January and brings the best alternative performances. Even better is Mel Brooks who's slated to open the festival with a showing of the great Blazing Saddles followed by a fan Q&A. There will also be a live version of Dr. Katz and Ali Wong will perform on Saturday at the Ace Hotel. Of course there will be dozens of more acts that have yet to be announced so hold onto your buckets. Riot LA takes place on Friday, January 20th through Sunday the 22nd.