The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is one of Australia’s biggest and renowned events of the year. The festival used starts on April 1st (April fools day), but these days it starts sometime in late March. The MICF is the third largest international comedy festival in the world! Comics from all over, come to put smiles on faces of Melbournians and visitors. Comedians and actors come from far away lands, like the UK, US, China, Ireland and many other countries where laughter is allowed.
The festival’s heart is the city centre Town Hall where there is a lot of natural foot traffic that draws a natural crowd. But the Melbournians are quite informed about the festival and many comics and shows draw repeating spectators. The acts themselves change every year. Generally, the comics will go on tour around the world performing in festivals like the Fringe Festival that is performed year-round in places like Perth, Adelaide, Canada, and even Edinburg, which is the biggest comedy festival in the world. Performers like Jon Bennet have several shows under their belt and will choose one to perform for each festival location. The reason why they don’t switch from night to night is so those who have seen the show can recommend it to their friends and talk about it, creating an interest which draws more of a crowd. Shows like Jon’s are not stand up. They are story-telling shows. Then you have proper stand-up comedians like Simon Taylor that interact with the spectators and make fun of them, but don’t worry its all in good fun. They have lots of jokes, and not always but usually at the mercy of someone else.
If you can see a show and support the MICF you should go and enjoy. Grab some friends or a hot date and enjoy yourself. It will be worth a laugh!