Birmingham Comedy Festival has been shortlisted for a What’s On Readers’ Award.
The long-running festival is in the running for Best Midlands Arts/ Cultural Festival in 2015, where it finds itself up against Birmingham Weekender, Birmingham Literature Festival, Fierce, Flatpack, Supersonic and Coventry’s Godiva Festival.
A spokesperson for the comedy festival said: “The nomination came as a complete surprise to us as we had no idea we’d even been longlisted. So it’s a real honour to have been voted onto the shortlist.
“We’re up again some well-funded, well-resourced and very popular events – so the competition is tough. But we’re genuinely just pleased to have been recognised as it’s the first time we’ve been in the running for an award.”
Many Birmingham Comedy Festival friends are also nominated for other categories, including The Glee, mac birmingham, THSH and The Rep (for their 2015 festival contribution, Anita and Me), while comics James Cook and Mrs Barbara Nice (who both worked on the very first comedy festival in 2001, and continue to contribute) are also up for gongs.
In other related news, MeetBirmingham have announced that Birmingham’s hotels achieved a record 81% occupancy rate in October 2015 – bolstered by a number of festivals, exhibitions and events.
The figure marks a 2% increase on October 2014 and a 7% growth compared with October 2013.
According the MeetBirmingham, notable events in October, which boosted Birmingham’s hotel occupancy, included the first-ever Print Show trade exhibition at the National Exhibition Centre, three One Direction appearances at The Barclaycard Arena and the Birmingham Comedy Festival (2-11 October 2015).
- Read the full press release on MeetBirmingham: Birmingham hotels break October occupancy record.
The next Birmingham Comedy Festival is scheduled for Friday 7 to Sunday 16 October 2016. Full line-up details are expected around August.
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