Did you hear the one about the snowboarding comedian? Here’s everything you need to know about Let’s Get Comédie, Europe’s first dual-lingual comedy festival featuring Frenglsh comedians and set to take Les Gets by storm between 20 and 24 January 2020.
Where did the idea come from to bring the festival to Les Gets?
It’s a fantastic time of year to go skiing an it’s great to have something to offer when the nights are cold! Technically, we’re not bringing this festival to Les Gets. This is a Les Gets festival created by Les Gets for Les Gets. The Tourist Office asked us to help with the festival because of our longstanding experience in live music and comedy festivals in ski resorts.
What is it about Les Gets that makes it good for a comedy event?
Despite being a family resort, Les Gets does have a vibrant après-ski scene and it’s great for us to tap into that and offer something extra. The resort venues have been very receptive to the event and we are looking forward to working with them. And also, the theatre La Colombière is a fantastic place for comedy. You’ll see what I mean on 20th januvier (sic) when we host the opening night comedy show.
Will this become an annual festival?
Yes, absolutely! However, it does depend on the lovely people of Les Gets getting behind it, getting their friends and guests to join the Let’s Get Comédie festival community by spreading the word, liking the Facebook page and, of course, buying tickets.
What can we expect from the apres and live music parties? Where will they take place?
Après-ski is a fantastic time for festival-goers to congregate and talk about the night they’ve just had and plan their night ahead. We’re still working on the programme, what we do know is that a lot of the après-ski will be featured at “l’après” which I’m sure you are all familiar with.
Tell us about the other comedy events you run in the Alps.
Our first alpine festival glory was back in the last millenium! The Chamjam and Val d’Isère’s Xbox Big Day Out is where we first started booking live music, comedians and DJs back in 1999. Marcus Brigstoke started headlining our comedy shows featuring the likes of Zoe Lyons, James Acaster, Milton Jons and DJs and musicians included Freq Nasty, Martin Solveig, Ash, K-Klass (!) and The Feeling.
We started Altitude festival, which is still goingto this day in Austria in 2008. Headliners have included Tim Minchin, Eddy Izzard, Lee Mac, Rich Hall, John Bishop, Mickey Flanagan, Rachel Parris, Christophe Aleveque, Elisabeth Buffet, Thomas VDB and Phil Darwin. We also ran Ibiza Rocks The Snow where we had Wilkinson, Clean Bandit, Dorly, MistaJam, Monki, Kissy Sellout. At some of the bigger events, we have sold around 9,000 tickets.
How’s the rest of the resort getting on board to support the festival?
We’ve worked with some of the Morzine and Les Gets tourism teams over the years and they asked us to consult and collaborate with them on this event. Any profits will be going back into the Les Gets events budget. Any sponsorship similarly goes directly to the Lets Gets tourism budget and any contributions from local business partners go to the Les Gets events budget. This is why it’s important for everyone to get behind Let’s Get Comédie festival – it is funded by your Tourist Office, it’s your budget!
Not only we are going to create the festival programme and coordinate the acts, we’ll also help drive the sales because we want this festival to be a success. Obviously we’d love the festival to be profitable so we can invite bigger named acts in the next few years.
Why was it important for this to be a dual lingual event?
There are clearly two really strong communities in Les Gets, bringing French and English tourists in great numbers to the resort. We’re trying to offer something for everyone. There are also many dual language / bilingual clever clogs out there and we think they will appreciate watching comedy in the other language, but also really enjoy our Franglais show on the Wednesday night. The Franglais show challenges our comedians to do their standup in the language which is foreign to them.
In these Brexit times, it’s important to show the outside world how working together to one common goal is beneficial for everyone.
