New York Comedy Festival Announces 2021 Return
This year, the festival returns, bringing live comedy back to New York City, with more than 150 shows.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Jun. 29, 2021
The New York Comedy Festival announced today, the official return of the highly anticipated, week-long celebration of laughs, set for November 8-14, 2021. Caroline Hirsch, the founder and owner of the NYCF, made the official announcement of the festival's 2021 edition, alongside Mayor de Blasio at City Hall in New York City.
Last year, due to public health and safety concerns connected to the global Covid-19 pandemic, the NYCF was forced to cancel the annual event for the first time in 17 years. This year, the festival returns, bringing live comedy back to New York City, with more than 150 shows featuring more than 200 comedians from around the world, podcast stars, and late-night hosts. A key focus of this year's festival is to shine a much needed spotlight on small venues that have been hit the hardest this past year.
"We're thrilled to be able to reunite fans with their favorite comedians again as New York City continues on the road to recovery," says Caroline Hirsch, founder and owner of the New York Comedy Festival and Carolines on Broadway. "In this 17th year of the New York Comedy Festival, we celebrate the varied and diverse talent - both up-and-coming and established stars - who continue to elevate the comedic landscape and deliver the laughs and joy that we all need now, more than ever. Our venue partners across the city have suffered tremendously over the last year, and so this year, we are committed to helping to bring them the business and patronage that they need, welcoming fans from across the country for a long-awaited week of laughter and unrivaled entertainment."
"The comeback of New York City's iconic comedy scene is no joke," said Mayor de Blasio. "With the New York Comedy Festival back, clubs and comics across the city are being lifted up and celebrated. That's something to smile about."
"It's time for New York City and time to experience and support legendary comedy this Fall across the five boroughs as we welcome back Caroline Hirsch's NY Comedy Festival. Let's laugh together as we help our comedy clubs recover and boost our tourism industry at the same time," said NYC & Company President and CEO Fred Dixon.
"Following the re-opening of Carolines on Broadway this spring, laughter was heard once again in Times Square, and now the news that the NY Comedy Festival will open this fall, will be an excellent way for all of NYC to recover," said Tom Harris, President of Times Square Alliance. "Soon to celebrate 40 years of making New Yorkers laugh, Times Square is proud to be the home of Carolines on Broadway where the NYCF began."
Since its inception in 2004, the NYCF has taken place each November, presenting the comedy industry's biggest stars on New York City's most prestigeous and iconic stages, including the Apollo Thater, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Beacon Theatre, Carnegie Hall, Carolines on Broadway, Madison Square Garden, and Town Hall, to name a few. In addition to stand-up, the festival has featured improv and sketch comedy, conversations, panel discussions, podcasts, art installations, film screenings and other programming. In 2007, the festival launched Stand Up for Heroes with the Bob Woodruff Foundation to honor our nation's impacted veterans and their families.
This year's talent line-up will be announced on August 16. Tickets will be available for purchase on the New York Comedy Festival website: www.nycomedyfestival.com.
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