12th Annual Laugh Your Asheville Off is This Weekend

The Southeast’s largest comedy festival celebrates twelve years in Asheville this weekend with stand-up comedians from all around the world.

Recently rebranded from Laugh Your Asheville Off, the Asheville Comedy Festival has grown into one of the country’s most prestigious comedy festivals among comedians, comedy industry professionals, and fans.

The three-day festival will showcase more than forty of the nation’s funniest comics in the industry. These comics flock into town to turn the heads of the audiences, major TV network executives, casting agents, talent bookers, and comedy club owners that have traveled to the festival to discover comedians in an atmosphere designed to set the performers up for success.

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“The festival has nurtured its reputation for being very comic and comedy industry friendly by staying true to what we believe a comedy festival should be… funny, classy, informative for the performers and comfortable for everyone from our comics all the way to our audience.  We don’t complicate winning.  We put high value on production detail because that’s what we would want from a big comedy show.” said Charlie Gerencer, festival Executive Producer/Director and production company executive.

Every year, Asheville is given a front row seat to see comedians from all around the world first. Many festival alums have gone on to great success including booking television and movie roles such as Seaton Smith (from the 7th year) who found himself in a supporting role on Fox’s Mulaney with David Spade. The 8th year’s headliner Chris Monty was in Mall Cop 2. And most recently, Chris Roach, who has become the breakout star in Kevin James’  sitcom Kevin Can Wait airing on CBS.

And it’s no wonder so much talent makes its way on to the Asheville Comedy Festival stages. Los Angeles-based Event Producer, Charlie Gerencer, is a comedy business veteran. Charlie has a full time career as head of comedy television development for Pygmy Wolf Productions in Los Angeles where he manages the company in a working development deal with Lionsgate.

Some of Charlie’s current and previous works include producing NETFLIX’s The Joel Mchale Show with Joel McHale and Norm Macdonald Has a Show, NBC’s Last Comic Standing seasons 1-3, Mohrsports on ESPN, Comedy programming for Viacom, TruTV, Kevin Hart’s LOL streaming network and many more. While actively producing comedy television he also dedicates a large amount of time to seeking out new comedic talent for potential development on the big screen.

The festival schedule is included below.

Thursday, August 9 at Highland Brewing Company
Friday, August 10 at Diana Wortham Theatre (2 shows)
Saturday, August 11 at Diana Wortham Theatre

Visit ashevillecomedyfestival.com for additional information and to purchase tickets in advance.