Now Accepting Submissions for 2025

The 49th San Francisco Comedy Competition is accepting submissions for 2025.

North America’s oldest comedy festival starts September, 2025 at various venues in San Francisco and around the Bay Area.

Part competition, part boot camp, this month-long event exposes comedians to a variety of venues from comedy clubs to large theatre shows.

This event differs from many other competitions. From opening night to the final show, it is four weeks long. Any performer participating will be expected to do one week of Preliminaries. If you make the cut, one week of Semifinals. If you make it to the Top Five, you will do one week of Finals. You have to participate at least one week of Preliminaries. There are no golden tickets to the Final Round.

This festival of comedy is different than many others because it has been consistently a place where emerging talent gets noticed. Our past alumni include (at the time) virtual unknowns like Robin Williams, Dana Carvey, Ellen Degeneres, Sinbad (He beat Ellen), Doug Stanhope, Kabir Singh, Marsha Warfield, Will Durst, Dane Cook and many others.

For more information, visit our How To Apply section.

We appreciate Comedy Wham for promoting our event on their list of comedy festivals and helping get the word out to comedians everywhere.

We also thank There It Is podcast for adding us to their list of comedy festivals. The podcast and newsletter are a good source for comedy fans and comedians.