COMIC RELIEF

Boulder Comedy Festival returns for another year of local laughs

BY LAUREN HILL

When Boulder Comedy Festival began in 2021, a year after the pandemic derailed its planned debut, the city was ready to laugh. So ready, in fact, that festival founder and comedian Zoe Rogers couldn’t even finish thanking the audience for coming before she was cut off by a shouted chorus in response: “No — thank you!”

Now Boulder Comedy Festival is back for its third year, reflecting the strength of the emerging Front Range comedy scene. With new comedy clubs and brewery-based open mic nights cropping up from Fort Collins to

Colorado Springs, it’s a much different environment for local stand-ups than it was just a few years ago.

But don’t expect the upcoming five-day event, taking place June 21 through 25 and featuring nearly 50 comedians from Boulder and across the country at locations like the Dairy Arts Center and BOCO Cider, to look like every other comedy showcase in the region.

“[I want to] put to bed that ridiculous idea that a comic looks like one partic- ular person,” Rogers says. “Because they don’t. That belongs to everyone.”

Rogers’ desire to expand her community’s perception of comedy stemmed from her frustration with bookers who never seemed to have