March to April · Victoria · Melbourne
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
Four weeks of comedy from Australian and international performers, the third-biggest comedy festival in the world.
Four weeks of stand-up, sketch and improv comedy across Melbourne in late March and April. The festival is the third-largest in the world behind Edinburgh and Montreal.
The Melbourne International Comedy Festival runs for four weeks from late March to late April every year and is the third-largest comedy festival in the world after Edinburgh and Montreal. It was founded in 1987 by the late comedian Barry Humphries and comedian Peter Cook, and has grown into a festival with more than 600 shows and 7,000 performances across the month.
Shows run at venues across the inner city, concentrated around the Melbourne Town Hall, the Athenaeum Theatre, the Comedy Theatre and dozens of smaller venues in Fitzroy, Collingwood and the CBD. Ticket prices run from 20 dollars for local acts up to 80 or 90 dollars for international headliners.
The festival attracts international comedians from across the English-speaking world, particularly from the UK and North America, and many acts use it as their southern hemisphere tour stop. The Oxfam Comedy Debate at the Town Hall is the single most popular event every year.
While you are there
