The Comedy Festival, formerly known as the US Comedy Arts Festival, is a comedy festival held each year in Las Vegas, Nevada. From its 1985 inception to 2008, it was held annually at the Wheeler Opera House and other venues in Aspen, Colorado. The primary sponsor of the festival was HBO, with co-sponsorship by Caesars Palace (the primary venue), TBS, GEICO Insurance, Twix candy bars and Smirnoff Vodka. HBO exited the festival business in 2007 and TBS became the primary sponsor.
The festival includes stand-up comedy performances, appearances by the casts of television shows, and has a film component called the Film Discovery Program.
In 2008, RooftopComedy.com and the opera house started a new festival based in Aspen, The Aspen RooftopComedy Festival.
Famous quotes containing the words comedy and/or festival:
“The difference between tragedy and comedy is the difference between experience and intuition. In the experience we strive against every condition of our animal life: against death, against the frustration of ambition, against the instability of human love. In the intuition we trust the arduous eccentricities we’re born to, and see the oddness of a creature who has never got acclimatized to being created.”
—Christopher Fry (b. 1907)
“Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will choose: at the festival of unleavened bread, at the festival of weeks, and at the festival of booths. They shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed; all shall give as they are able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God that he has given you.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 16:16,17.