Factsheet
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Description
Summary
ARGComFest is a weekend comedy festival of Fringe previews and work-in-progress shows that takes place every summer. The festival brings an attentively curated programme of over sixty comedians — from big name TV favourites to up-and-coming newcomers — to the labyrinthine settings of Shoreditch Town Hall.
Our festival programme celebrates and attracts diversity in all its forms. ARG is committed to making live comedy more accessible and inclusive, and our festival has access provision such as quiet spaces and live captioned performances throughout the weekend.
Programme
Our 2024 festival programme featured an array of Edinburgh Comedy Award nominees and winners such as Nish Kumar, Sara Pascoe, Mark Watson, Larry Dean, Ania Magliano, Jordan Brookes, Lauren Pattison, Colin Hoult, Olga Koch, Tom Ballard, Sara Barron, Steen Raskopoulos, Amy Gledhill, Ian Smith, and Paddy Young.
The festival also included stars such as Chloe Petts, Stuart Laws, Celya AB, Ray Badran, Micky Overman, Joz Norris, Lulu Popplewell, Lou Wall, John Tothill and Laura Davis. Plus exciting debut hours by Abby Wambaugh, Dee Allum, Dan Wye and Tal Davies!
The Friday Night Show
Following sell-out shows in 2022 and 2023, ARG and Shoreditch Town Hall once again launched the festival weekend with The Friday Night Show on 5th July — another spectacular, star-studded showcase of comedians at the top of their game!
July's blockbuster bill was hosted by Ania Magliano and featured Katherine Ryan, Phil Wang, Sindhu Vee, Larry Dean, Jamali Maddix, Sikisa and Glenn Moore!
Access
ARG is committed to making live comedy more accessible and inclusive, and ensuring that live comedy is welcoming to all audiences, artists and staff. We work with Claire Hill to provide live captioning for The Friday Night Show and a number of performances throughout the festival weekend.
This is just the beginning and we keenly understand the importance of including access provision as standard across all our programming. We are proud to see that more venues and promoters are taking accessibility into consideration and as a festival, we are committed to expanding our access offer to include alternative provision (such as British Sign Language) and to cover our whole festival programme by 2028.
All future editions of The Friday Night Show will feature live captioning. We will announce more details of our access provision for ARGComFest 2025 in the future.
To date, we have delivered all access provision without external funding or subsidy — but we will need to change this in order to meet our 2028 commitment. If you can help, please email [email protected].
Background
History
In 2012, ARGComFest was founded as a day of comedy across two floors of a pub in King's Cross with two main goals:
- to allow people to see the best Fringe shows in London with excellent value tickets — but still within a Fringe-like atmosphere
- to provide comedians with paid previews — as many acts frequently lose money on previews due to prohibitive venue hire costs
Over the following years, the festival established a recognisable identity and a strong reputation for a discerning, high-quality programme. It quickly grew: first to a full weekend, then to fill larger venues, and later to a third stage.
Social impact
As the festival has grown, carving out its position in the comedy calendar along the way, it has become more bold and outspoken about issues facing live comedy and wider society.
Since 2012, the festival has absorbed booking fees whenever possible (and reduced ticket prices to compensate when not); moved to a significantly more accessible venue; promoted the No More Page 3 campaign; encouraged festival-goers to donate to food banks, LGBTQI+ and domestic violence charities; partnered with local businesses; and kept any ticket price increases well below inflation — even when adding an extra stage with an accompanying 50% increase in acts.
ARGComFest was the first major comedy festival to have a gender-balanced programme and it continues to push the boundaries of diversity and representation in live comedy.
Quotes & Recognition
Festival founder and director Pax Lowey has some of the most reliably exciting instincts of any programmer. You’ll struggle to find a better overview of what’s good in stand-up right now.
the ultimate concentrated comedy event … ARGComFest is the comedy Glastonbury
[ARGComFest] has become an integral part of Fringe preparations … from its first year it developed a reputation for the calibre of its line-ups.
intense, ridiculously good-value festival
Images
download these images as .zip (5.4 MB) — to be credited to Edward Moore. other images available on request
Style guide
- The festival title is always written as either ARGComFest (no spaces) or in full as Actually Rather Good Comedy Festival.
- Common mistakes include: adding spaces ('ARGCom Fest'), partially abbreviating ('ARG Comedy Festival'), or missing sections of the title ('ARGFest') — these are all incorrect and confusing due to similarly named festivals.
- Listings often have 'ARGComFest' as the title and the blurb opens with the full name, for example: "Actually Rather Good Comedy Festival is back, bigger than ever!" — the opposite is also fine.
- ARG is the company, ARGComFest is the festival.
- The shade of red used for festival branding is PANTONE 186 C, RGB (200,16,46) HEX (C8102E), or CMYK (2,100,85,6).
Credits
Founder/Director: Pax Lowey she/her
- Instagram: @pxlwy
- Web: paxlowey.com
- Email: [email protected]
Photographer: Edward Moore he/him
- Instagram: @edshots
- Web: edshots.co.uk
- Email: [email protected]
Designer: Ashley Howard they/them
- Email: [email protected]
Producer: Melissa Rutnagur she/her
- Email: [email protected]