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The Leicester Comedy Festival, one of the UK’s largest comedy events, is facing significant financial difficulties that have left many performers unpaid. This year’s festival, held from 4 to 22 February, attracted around 100,000 attendees and featured over 500 acts, including well-known names such as Sir Stephen Fry, Sara Pascoe, and Rosie Holt. Despite its popularity, numerous comedians and event organizers have reported outstanding payments, with the festival organizers attributing the delays to ongoing cashflow problems they are striving to address.
Comedian Ben Alborough expressed his frustration over the unpaid fees, stating, “I’m owed just short of £2,000. It’s very frustrating. I’ve got bills to pay like everyone else.” Alborough, who relies on comedy as his full-time profession, explained that the issue of non-payment is widespread. He noted the expenses performers incur, including registration fees, travel, accommodation, and production costs, which often require significant upfront investment. Reflecting on his connection to Leicester Comedy Festival, he emphasized its importance to his career and stressed the necessity of ensuring all artists are properly compensated, saying, “But in order to do that, everyone needs to get paid. Artists need to be paid money.”
Other individuals involved with the festival have also been impacted. Canadian stand-up comedian Zoe Brownstone, for example, is still waiting on £180 owed to her and voiced her disappointment: “It is astonishing to me that a big organised festival can’t pay me at the end of the day.” Meanwhile, event organizer Rachael Johnson, who hosted two shows in Lutterworth, said she was owed £600 and described the financial strain on her operations. She highlighted the burden of ongoing expenses such as staff wages, rates, and VAT, adding, “We’ve got all of those bills that come at us relentlessly, but other people aren’t playing their part in keeping to the rules, and that’s really, really disappointing.” Although understanding of the pressures faced by the festival, Johnson called for urgent resolution:
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