SLO’s eighth annual Comedy Festival will feature 40 comedians over the course of 20 shows taking place this February
Graphic couresty of Eric Shantz / SLO Comedy Festival

Lindsay Darbyshire
News Editor

The eighth annual SLO Comedy Festival has been scheduled for this month and will take place at nine venues in Atascadero, Avila Beach, San Luis Obispo.

The show will span over four days, resulting in a total of 20 shows headlining 40 professional comedians from all over the world. Some of the included comics have been performed on Comedy Central, Conan, Kimmel, Comics Unleashed, Last Comic Standing, and more.

“When you see our shows, we have people that are in there from as young as 18 years old and as old as 70,” said Eric Shantz, the creator of the SLO Comedy Festival. “It’s all walks of life coming to the show and everybody likes to laugh. There’s not too many people that don’t like to laugh. It’s just a nice bonding experience for the community.”

As far as the labor it takes to produce one of these festivals, Shantz always intends to provide for the comedians in the festival in a multitude of ways. Shantz receives around 200 to 300 video submissions by comedians from all around the world. He, along with others, spend a full week judging and rating the videos on originality, stage presence, humor, and how comfortable the comedian appears on stage.

“You have to love torture,” Shantz, who has been doing stand up comedy for 20 years, joked. “It’s a lot of work when you add up the hours that go into it… It’s a labor of love… This is a way to kind of give back to the comedy community.”

There is an expected attendance of 3,000 collectively over the course of the 20 shows coming up, according to Shantz.

The festival is set to take place between Feb. 22- 25 and tickets can be found on their website.