Edmonton Comedy Festival offers spotlight on homegrown talent

Published Sep 20, 2024 • Last updated 1 day ago • 5 minute read

Andrew Grose, producer and one of the headliners of the Edmonton Comedy Festival, running Sept. 25-28 at various venues. Photo by Dawn Mucciarone edm

Table of Contents

Andrew Grose is thrilled that you may not know any of the comedians at this year’s Edmonton Comedy Festival.

“We’ve brought in big names before, sure, but in my mind that’s not what a comedy festival should be,” says the festival producer and stand-up comedian. “In my mind what a comedy festival should be is introducing you to comedians that you don’t already know, and celebrating the comics who are working right now in Canada and the United States. What I want to do is bring in comedians that you may not have heard of, but you’ll never forget.”

Advertisement 2

Article content

Luckily, Grose has a great deal of on-the-ground knowledge when it comes to comedy. As we’re speaking he’s sitting in the parking lot of a Walgreens in Maine, taking a bit of time off from his stint as a cruise ship comedian. He’s a working comic who knows an awful lot of other comics, and he’s somewhat evangelical on the topic.

So much so that the festival has created a nice little spot for itself amongst some of the other heavy hitters in town.

“There are so many festivals in the city, and there’s so much talent as well,” he notes. “We’re always on the heels of the Fringe, and the weekend after our festival is the Canadian Finals Rodeo, which isn’t a festival but it is an event. But we have this core following who’ve been with us from the beginning, and when we put our tickets on sale half of them go immediately. We then spend the few weeks basically trying to coerce people into buying them. So, we’re doing well but in some ways, we’re still establishing our brand.”

The festival’s brand wasn’t helped when the Great Outdoor Comedy Festival popped up on the scene a few years back. The summer event immediately became conflated with the festival in many people’s minds, which caused a certain amount of confusion. This led to Grose having to answer for the new festival in town’s initial growing pains.

Article content

Advertisement 3

Article content

“In their first year, as you’ll recall, they didn’t have enough beer trucks, sandwich trucks, and toilets,” he says. “My inbox was inundated with complaints. I answered every single one slaying ‘Thank you so much for supporting comedy in Edmonton. We hope it didn’t ruin your experience, but just so you know, we are not the Great Outdoor Comedy Festival.’”

The producer isn’t particularly exasperated by this. To Grose, the Great Outdoors festival takes care of one facet of the comedy scene, booking some of the bigger names in the comedy world. On the other side, the Grindstone Comedy Festival mixes improv with stand-ups and skit comedy, while the Edmonton Comedy Festival is purely stand-up. For this year’s festival, they’ll be bringing in veteran road warriors like Kelowna’s Tim Nutt, Toronto’s Chris Robinson, and former country singer turned comic Rory Gardiner.

Aimée Beaudoin and Jeff Halaby will both be taking to the stage as part of the Edmonton Comedy Festival, running Sept. 25-28. File photo Photo by Ian Kucerak /Postmedia

A stalwart fan of the city he lives in when not entertaining on cruise ships, Grose makes sure that Edmonton is well represented. As he points out, people would be surprised to find out how much homegrown talent can be found on stages around the world. That includes the Spotlight’s Jeff Halaby and Aimée Beaudoin, as well as Kyle Caniff, Tyler Hawkins, and Ben Proulx, with Ken Valgardson waving the flag for Camrose. The lone international performers are Kristeen von Hagen from Las Vegas and Ireland’s Simon O’Keefe.

Advertisement 4

Article content

They’ll all be performing at various venues throughout the festival, which runs Wednesday through Saturday. The Spotlight Cabaret — 8217 104 St. — hosts the Spotlight Series, the Westbury Theatre in the Fringe Theatre Arts Barns has the Leading Edge Show, while Yuk Yuks at 13103 Fort Rd boasts the Club Series. A few have already sold out, including Friday night’s Westbury Theatre show with Gardiner, so don’t take too long to procure your tickets

More information can be found at the Edmonton Comedy Festival website.

“One of the things I love about this festival is how packed it is with talent,” says Grose, who has already sold out his own show at the Westbury Theatre on Saturday night. “You’re hanging with some of the best comedians in the country and people that you’ve worked with in the last 20 years but you haven’t seen in 10. It’s like the Club Med for comics, and we treat the comics the way I would want to be treated when I’m at a festival. We take care of them backstage, we do social events with them. They never have to ask for their check. When they walk off the stage the final time, my wife is right there handing them their money and saying ‘thank you so much for being here.’”

Advertisement 5

Article content

We did note earlier that Grose can be very evangelical when it comes to the subject of comedy, right? On his day off he’s not interested in turning into a joke machine for the benefit of a journalist, he wants to get into the nuts and bolts of it, talk about raising awareness. Most of all, he wants to get across that he wants the festival to be the sort of place where comics can relax a little and know that they’ll be taken care of.

“It’s such a great time for us,” says Grose. “I often say that if I wanted a second income from the festival I’d bring a camera into the green room because some of the best comedy is going on back there with people telling road stories and laughing. But what it comes down to for me is filling the rooms. I don’t really need to fill them once they get to half because I’ve made money, but I need it to be filled because I want these guys who’ve travelled from all over the continent to play to a full house. I want that energy in the room, I want the comic to be thrilled and I want the audience leaving saying ‘That was a great ticket, that was a good decision to go.’”