Leicester Comedy Festival renews its scheme

Organisers of the Leicester Comedy Festival have launched a crowdfunding campaign to help new comedians.

It is the second year producers have run the appeal, with £1,500 having been raised to help eight-up-and-coming acts perform in this year’s festival – although the initial target was an ambitious £10,000.

The target for 2019 is to raise £3,000. 

Festival director Geoff Rowe said ‘Sponsorship and funding is increasingly difficult for us to sustain but we want to continue our commitment to support new talent.  We hope fans from across the UK will support the campaign again and help us find the future big names in comedy.’

 The comedians who took part in Circuit Breakers 2018 were Regan MacNeil, Liam Bannigan, Akin Omobitan, Kathryn Mather, Sian Davies and Stephen Harper – all pictured above.

Bannigan said: ‘It to gave me a fantastic taster of what a career in comedy will be like. It gave me more confidence in my material, and myself as a comedian.’

Applications from comedians who want to apply to benefit from the 2019 scheme  will open later this year and the crowdfunding page is here.

Leicester Comedy Festival will run from February 6 to 24 and the full programme will be announced in November.

Published: 26 Jun 2018