The Southeast’s largest comedy festival celebrates ten years in Asheville this summer with stand up comedians from all around the world. Since its first two day festival in 2006, The Laugh Your Asheville Off Comedy Festival has grown into one of the country’s most prestigious comedy festivals among both comedians, comedy industry professionals and fans. The five-day festival will be showcasing 70 of the nation’s funniest comics in the industry today. The 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.”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 with the million moving parts in between including crew, sponsors, volunteers, local talent and local businesses. We don’t complicate winning. We put high value on production detail because that’s what we would want from a big comedy show.” says 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, last year’s headliner, Chris Roach, will be starring in a new Kevin James comedy airing in October on CBS.And it’s no wonder so much talent makes its way on to the Laugh Your Asheville Off 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 previous works include producing Last Comic Standing seasons 1-3, Mohrsports on ESPN, multiple comedy pilots for various networks, Creator and producer of the comedy event for RIMPAC at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and development executive for Giraffe Productions at Sony Entertainment.
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 kicks off Tuesday August 9 with a double dose of Highland Brewery “Festival Launch Parties” that will feature Flip Schultz opening night and have a combined total of over 20 comedians on both shows Tuesday and Wednesday Aug. 9-10.
Then the event carries on to a three night run at the beautiful Diana Wortham Theatre for four shows ending on Saturday August 13 with comedian legend Carl Labove.
Individual show pricing: $25/ticketCosmo Festival Passes: $125 offering a savings of $25 that gives access to every show on the schedule.Tickets available at: www.laughyourashevilleoff.com
About Laugh Your Asheville Off Comedy Festival — The largest non-competitive comedy festival in the southeast, LYAO hosts comics, industry professionals, and talent producers during a multi-day, multi-venue event in Asheville. Previous talent have gone on to appear on network sitcoms, half-hour Comedy Central specials, and late night flagship shows like The Late Show with David Letterman, Conan, and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon as well as many others.
