Melbourne International Comedy Festival - History

History

The festival was launched in 1987 at a media conference hosted by Barry Humphries (as Sir Les Patterson) and Peter Cook. According to the festival's co-founder, John Pinder, the idea of holding an international comedy festival originated in the early 1980s. In 1986, Pinder persuaded the Victorian Tourism Commission to fund an overseas trip in order to visit other international comedy festivals and investigate the possibility of holding a festival in Melbourne. Pinder became convinced it would work, and after his return wrote a report for the state government, which they accepted. The following year, the first annual Melbourne International Comedy Festival launched.

Traditionally the festival would open on or around April Fool's Day (1 April), though it now generally begins in mid to late March and runs for roughly four weeks. Its first year, in 1987, featured 56 separate shows, including performances by the Doug Anthony All Stars, Wogs Out Of Work, Gerry Connolly, Los Trios Ringbarkus and Rod Quantock. By 1999, it contained over 120 shows and was being attended by some 350,000 patrons annually. In 2010, it played host to a record 369 shows and 4,947 performers both local and international, including artists from the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland and China. In addition, it achieved an attendance of over 508,000 and its highest-ever box office revenue of A$10.9 million, ranking it as Australia's largest cultural event. Activities were originally centred around the Universal and Athenaeum Theatres but in the early 1990s the MICF shifted its epicentre to the newly-refurbished Melbourne Town Hall, which has remained the festival hub. Soon after this, it spread out further to include an independently produced program at the Melbourne Trades Hall as well. In 2010, for the first time, the Festival also ran the Trades Hall venue.

The MICF is the third-largest international comedy festival in the world, behind Edinburgh's Fringe Festival and Montreal's Just For Laughs.

Although it is mainly a vehicle for stand-up and cabaret acts, its programme has also featured sketch shows, plays, improvisational theatre, debates, musical shows and art exhibitions. There is also a tradition for experimenting with unusual comedy venues, such as Rod Quantock's "Bus" tours and the similar "Storming Mount Albert By Tram", which used buses and trams respectively as mobile theatres in which the audience members were also passengers.

In 2006, the opening of the festival was delayed due to the Festival Melbourne that occurred as part of the 2006 Commonwealth Games held in Melbourne.

Following the end of the festival in Melbourne various local and international comedians join the MICF Roadshow, which spends several months touring regional Australia and in 2010, Singapore.