Comedy fest is biggest so far - that's no joke!
SCOTT Barton is somewhere in London finding a sponsor for Grin Up North, the Sheffield comedy festival which in its fifth year has just become in terms of seats, the biggest in England.
Come October, Sheffield will be the country's Gag Central, with at least one comic on a stage somewhere in the city every night of the month.
"Not bad for something dreamed up on the back of a fag packet," says Scott, one half of the duo behind the comedy fest. The other is Toby Foster, comic, radio presenter and boss of the city's ever-expanding Last Laugh comedy club.
Barton and Foster's Laugh In includes Eddie Izzard, Michael McIntyre, Jimmy Carr, Alistair McGowan, John Shuttleworth, Mitch Benn, Marcus Brigstocke, Al Murray and a brace of Parsons, Andy and Nicholas, of Just A Minute Fame. As well as Toby himself.
They will have to sell 83,000 seats and half of those have gone already.
McIntyre, who has known Toby for years, is now doing his third year with the festival. He started at the Memorial Hall to a crowd of 500, transferred to the Lyceum in front of 1,000 and is now doing three nights of the Arena before 11,000 people. One night is already sold out.
"This festival is the biggest so far. Last autumn we put together a meeting with the powers-that-be in the city and told them how far we had gone in four years. There were three reasons to continue.
"It is good for the people of Sheffield and let's them have a laugh. It brings in vistiors – 40 per cent of people who bought tickets were from outside the city.
"And it was great for the image of Sheffield and showed we have got a sense of humour."
While he looks after the admin side of the festival Toby, currently on holiday in France, secured the acts using his contacts in the business.
Critically, says Scott, what mattered was getting the agents onside. "They have realised Sheffield is a great place for people to go. We might be in the middle of all this doom and gloom but comedy is booming."
Scott runs the Sheffield Events Company which has staged events like the city's streets festival and the Mayfest, both of which suffered from bad weather. Grin was born when Scott, interviewing Toby at one of his other events, Fright Night, asked why he didn't organise a comedy festival. It has proved a shrewd move.
"Toby says roofs are the future. You don't get wet when it rains," laughs Scott.
The festival's major sponsors are Magners, the Irish cider people, and supporters – which does not always involve hard cash – include the city council, Supertram. Sheffield International Venues, Creative Sheffield, East Midlands Trains, Sheffield Arena, Travel South Yorkshire, Yorkshire South tourism and Sheffield Newspapers.
One of the things that will be pushed will be using public transport to attend concerts although depends on late buses being available to get home.
"We see the core of the festival as all about bringing major names to the city as well as bringing up and coming acts, and some more unusual ones."
Scott is bullish. "People are up for it. We have made very little money so far so we are hoping to be able to pay ourselves a bit for our time this year."
He is joking, isn't he?
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Friday 10 February 2012
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