Cover of the Aug. 13-19 issue of Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. Credit: Design by Joe Frontel
In 2024, Tampa Bay hosted the Sunshine Comedy Festival, where more than a hundred comics took part in nearly 80 events, from stand-up, to podcast tapings, workshops and more. Organizers said roughly 1,500 people attended each day. Jake Frombach—who founded the comedy brand and website Joke Wrld (stylized “Joke WRLD”) three years earlier—was one of them and remembers Sunshine being pretty cool and all the comedians having a good time, with just one caveat.
“The venues were 40, 50 minutes apart,” he told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay about the crossbay drive many festival goers were forced to take. “It just wasn’t the best layout for the fan experience, even though the comedians had a great time and always talked about how fun this area was.”
Frombach—who’s grown Joke Wrld’s following to more than 763,000 on YouTube, with close to 225,000 on other platforms—relocated to Austin, Texas soon after and always missed the Bay area. When Joke Wrld decided to do its own festival, St. Petersburg was the obvious place.
“I know the comedians liked it, and it was almost like reviving a festival they’d only tried once,” he said about his pitch to owners at Coastal Creative. Frombach’s team would run the festival, put their name on it and lean on Coastal for help finding stages.
“A lot of the biggest comedians, on podcasts and in interviews, always talk about what a good comedy town Tampa Bay is,” Frombach said. “[Crowds] support live comedy, they laugh at the right stuff, they’re not too easily offended or cagey. It just seemed like a good spot.”
This weekend, Frombach, a small Joke Wrld team, and volunteers, push the car out of the garage. Five venues are on the schedule; three of them are within a six-minute walk from Coastal, and one (Campbell Park, which will host a literal home run derby to open day two) is 20 minutes away. Other venues include Spitfire Comedy House and The Off-Central Theatre.
“Comedy’s always better with friends, always better in person. I’ve watched specials I was there for live, then watched the recording, and it didn’t feel nearly as good as the room did,” Frombach added about his motivation to take a swing at another large festival. “A lot of people say they’re fans of comedy and comedians but still haven’t been to a real good live show. I’m trying to give people that chance—and the chance to experience a festival.”
The planning timeline has been kind of nuts. Frombach told CL that his team, which includes “business guy” Trent Tully who does a lot of off camera work, made the decision to do this last February, and called the months since a crash course in festival execution.
“I talked to a few people I trust in the industry, and the advice I kept getting was that most people would already be booked for August,” he said. That’s true. Side Splitters in Tampa has Sam Tallent this weekend, and giants like Bert Kreischer and Tom Segura are actually in town to sign bottles of vodka at liquor stores.
He didn’t know if Joke Wrld’s online presence would be enough to convince comedians to take part in such a large-scale event. But he sent the DMs to comics the website had covered—talent, Frombach explained, that he had to have at the first festival.
“A lot of people said yes. Too many people said yes, honestly,” he admitted.
Joke Wrld Fest is now way bigger than the small, two-day, two-to-three venue affair organizers first envisioned. Now there are more than 70 comedians on the lineup, with many based in Los Angeles, New York City and in Frombach’s current hometown of Austin which is home to the Joe Rogan-owned Comedy Mothership.
Maddy Smith, Tommy Pope, Lemaire Lee, Shawn Gardini, Josh Adam Meyers, and Jamar Neighbors are just a few of the bigger names, and there is a “Kill Tony” showcase hosted by David Jolly (not the guy running for governor). Surprise guests are peppered into at least six sets on the Joke Wrld Fest schedule, which includes podcasts (“Fart Carnival,” “Fitzdog Radio,” “Dad Meat”), comedy jams with live bands, a ladies showcase, crowd work shows, and more.
Frombach said the festival is being funded by Joke Wrld, not Rogan, Tony Hinchcliffe or some other entity (although he’d be glad to get money from anyone). “My ass is in the jackpot in terms of the five years of YouTube revenue. Everything has been saved, and this is reinvesting everything we have back into Joke Wrld,” he added.
He also admitted to making bonehead mistakes like pasting the wrong contract to a few people.
“So some are getting overpaid and some underpaid because of it. Nobody’s said anything, so we’re rolling with it. We’re too close to it to worry at this point,” he said. “I think we’re just not smart enough to know how insane this is, so the only way forward is through.”
Another oversight is local talent. Sunshine Comedy Festival more or less nailed it when tapping homegrown comics to be a part of the show, but Joke Wrld only features a handful of comics who’ve lived in the Bay area at some point (Cam Bertrand, Jay Legend) and a few more Florida adjacent acts (Jolly, Ike Rafferty, Ryan Joseph, Luke Touma, Christophe Jean). Tampa-founded Cigar City Brewing is the biggest local sponsor (the company now has out-of-state ownership, but still employs beloved members of the local beer scene).
At inception, Frombach thought fans may fly in for a festival like his. But he quickly realized that would entail at least $1,000 after flights and hotels.
“That was a real lesson—this isn’t a national festival, it’s more of a local thing,” he said, adding that he’s grown distant from the local scene two years after leaving the Bay area for Texas. Instead, he explained, locals will volunteer at the festival, with some Bay area comics filling last-minute slots.
All told, Frombach is excited for festival weekend and embracing all the good things, and lessons, too. His enthusiasm for the experiment, and willingness to talk about missteps feels earnest. Friends and followers at other festivals are excited for the outing. Frombach even thinks that the festival will do well enough to return for another go, with a longer planning timeline. And of course, he’s keeping a sense of humor about it all.
“Even if this goes terrible, so many more people will watch the YouTube video saying we threw comedy’s Fyre Fest,” he said.
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