This year’s festival has better competition than ever, David Britton, last year’s winner and current ?contestant, said.
“A lot of comics in Bloomington do shows in Indy and drive to Cincinnati and do shows there and have just been getting better and better,” Britton said. “We have all these people in Bloomington becoming really good comedians, so this should be the best year ever for the contest.”
The Comedy Attic opened in 2008. During the school year, the club has open mic Wednesdays. With students gone for the summer, owner Jared Thompson said he wasn’t sure if they’d be as successful so the club canceled the events.
However, the club needed a new way to make money, so the Bloomington Comedy Festival was born.
“It’s the most popular thing we do all year,” Thompson said. “There’s not a whole lot of reason to mess with it or change it.”
Thompson credits the popularity of the show to the ownership the audience takes in voting for the winners. During the shows, 10 comics perform their set and then the audience votes for the top six to move on. Ultimately, the audience gets to choose the winner.
Britton said he believes the audiences found in Bloomington are like no ?other small town audience.
“The crowds here are so much better than you get at an average club,” Britton said. “I don’t know if it’s because the University or just Bloomington being diverse, but audiences here embrace comedy as an art form.”
Viewing comedy as an art is important, but it’s not always treated that way, Britton said. If comedy was viewed as an art on the same level as painting, sculpting or writing, then Britton said it would be less likely to be censored.
But because comedy isn’t always seen as an art, there are certain topics and words which are off limits that wouldn’t be in other art forms, Britton said.
Since the Comedy Attic opened, Bloomington has sent eight to 10 comics to work in comedy professionally in Chicago, New York or Los Angeles, Thompson said.
Tom Brady, who won the Bloomington Comedy Festival twice, is now one of the most buzzed about comedians in the country, ?Thompson said.
The show has no cash prize but always comes with a trophy. The trophies vary each year and are kept secret until the end.
Trophies have included a gold-painted pizza box with a microphone coming out of it, 250 two-dollar bills and a life-size replica of Bernie from “Weekend at Bernie’s.”
The shows are at 8 p.m. every Wednesday at the Comedy Attic. Tickets usually sell out, so it’s best to buy them ahead of time online at comedyattic.com. Tickets are $5 per show, while festival tickets are available for all the shows at $25, which also includes admission to one weekend show at the ?Comedy Attic.
“I just hope the audiences and comedians have fun,” Thompson said. “Yes, some people are going to be upset that they didn’t make it further, but ultimately what matters is that everyone has fun.”
