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The Doug Anthony All Stars on stage at Melbourne Town Hall during the 2016 festival, one at the mic with a guitarist and a
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2027

24 March – 18 April 2027

The festival, its rooms and the comedians connected to it, with a budget for the trip in AUD.

The festivalPlan the trip
The underside of a theatre marquee studded with warm bulbs, no lettering 01 · The festival

What it is, when and where

Barry Humphries and Peter Cook launched the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 1987. It now ranks among the world's three largest comedy festivals, with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Montreal's Just for Laughs: each autumn Melbourne Town Hall and the streets around it become its hub for stand-up, cabaret, theatre and street performance, and it calls itself Australia's largest ticketed cultural event.

Past festivals

  • 2026 · 26 days The 40th anniversary: 796,975 attendees (13% up on 2025), 803 shows and a record $26.6 million at the box office. cms.comedyfestival.com.au ↗
  • 2025 · 26 March–20 April 690 shows on 182 stages in 133 venues. chortle.co.uk ↗

Where the shows are

An audience in silhouette from behind, warm orange stage light and haze 02 · The comedians

Who to see

Award winners

03 · The city

Melbourne, around the festival

Melbourne is next

The city chapter is on its way: things to do around the shows, by what you like, from food and culture to the outdoors and the night.

04 · Around the show

Before the show and after it

Dinner, the night after and the way back

Places to eat near the rooms, what fits after your last show by the places' published hours, and the way back to your hotel are coming to this guide.

Melbourne Town Hall on the map ↗
05 · Plan the trip

Plan the trip

Where to stay

Hotels near the rooms and the way in from the airport are coming to this guide. The budget below works now, with your own prices.

Ornate brass cash register in amber light The budget

What will your trip cost?

Use the prices you actually find. The calculator adds up what you enter; it fetches no prices and checks no availability.

Your trip

Stay and shows

Food and getting around

At home while you're away

The rest

Cup and saucer silhouetted against a misted window at dawn, red cloth below Ready to go

Your ready-to-go list

Your ticks stay on this device.

Questions

When is the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2027?

24 March – 18 April 2027, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Where are the Melbourne International Comedy Festival's shows?

Melbourne Town Hall, 90-130 Swanston St, Melbourne 3000.

Sources