The Columbus Comedy Festival
A city-wide celebration of all things comedy.
A weekend PACKED with laughs!
The Columbus Comedy Festival was launched in 2024 as an annual showcase of hilarious local talent as well as regional and national performers. The festival includes a diverse mix of venues, comedy types, performers and styles, so there’s something to be found for everyone.
This festival was created and is operated by Columbus Underground — an award-winning local media outlet — in collaboration with a variety of venue partners. Collectively, this partnership is booking, organizing and hosting dozens of standup, sketch, improv and variety shows throughout the run of the festival.
With each show priced affordably, attendees can pick and choose which shows to attend each day, providing a variety of comedy experiences to suit everyone’s sense of humor.
The first annual Columbus Comedy Festival took place August 14-18, 2024 and featured over 150 performers — with over 5,500 attendee tickets sold.
The second annual Columbus Comedy Festival took place September 4th-7th, 2025.
(Photos: Geoffrey Asmus and Kasaun Wilson, performing in 2025 — photos by Walker Evans.)
What Makes the Columbus Comedy Festival Different?
The Columbus comedy scene is one of the city’s best kept secrets. Our city boasts a collection of tried-and-true historic venues along with newer comedy clubs that showcase top tier talent year-round.
Emerging local comedians deliver performances that rival what you can find in larger cities thanks to a dedicated scene of open mic nights and venues willing to platform local talent.
National performers gravitate toward Columbus for tour stops and signature shows thanks to a younger-than-average demographic looking for high quality entertainment options.
The Columbus comedy scene is diverse and collaborative. We may not have the industry connections of New York or Los Angeles, but our willingness to experiment with future-facing opportunities is helping performers to grow and excel.
Success Stories So Far
While the Columbus Comedy only officially got started in 2024, we’ve already hosted many nationally recognized and up-and-coming performers.
Some of them include: Sam Jay, Michael Ian Black, Second City Chicago, Tony Rock, ALOK, Jason Banks, Geoffrey Asmus, Jeremiah Watkins, Ric Diez, Irene Tu, Fumi Abe, Chloe Radcliffe, Ian Fidance, Saul Trujillo, Jim Florentine, Orlando Leyba, River Butcher, Tom Thakkar, James Adomian, Chad the Bird, Kasaun Wilson, DeAnne Smith, Justine Marino, Alex Falcone, Dan Donohue, Aminah Imani, Fabrizio Copano, Pat Burtscher, Sasha Merci, Ramon Rivas, Lea’h Sampson, Comrade Tripp, Mary Santora, Jordan Rock, Zach Zimmerman, Leyla Ingalls and more.
About Columbus Underground
Columbus Underground is a locally owned and operated online news publication that was established in 2001 by Anne Evans and Walker Evans. For over twenty years, CU has been an invaluable resource for local information, events, news and much more. For more info, visit ColumbusUnderground.com.
Anne and Walker began attending comedy shows shortly after they began dating in 2001. One of their favorite comedy memories is stopping by the Cleveland Improv (now the Funny Bone Cleveland) in the summer of 2004 to watch Mitch Hedberg perform, on their way home from getting engaged at Niagara Falls.
Some of their other favorite live comedy performances over the years include Bob Saget, Maria Bamford, Dave Chappelle, Jerry Seinfeld, Mark Normand, Lewis Black, Demetri Martin, Joe Pera, Mateo Lane, Zack Galafanakis, TJ Miller, Joel McHale, Richard Lewis, Marc Maron, Aziz Ansari, David Spade and Nick Swardson just to name a few — and they look forward to making many more memories in the future!
