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Cover of the Aug. 13-19 issue of Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. Credit: Design by Joe Frontel<\/p>\nCover of the Aug. 13-19 issue of Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. Credit: Design by Joe Frontel<\/p>\n
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<\/a>. Jake Frombach\u2014who founded the comedy brand and website Joke Wrld (stylized \u201cJoke WRLD\u201d) three years earlier\u2014was one of them and remembers Sunshine being pretty cool and all the comedians having a good time, with just one caveat.<\/p>\n \u201cThe venues were 40, 50 minutes apart,\u201d he told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay about the crossbay drive many festival goers were forced to take. \u201cIt just wasn\u2019t the best layout for the fan experience, even though the comedians had a great time and always talked about how fun this area was.\u201d<\/p>\n Frombach\u2014who\u2019s grown Joke Wrld\u2019s following to more than 763,000 on YouTube<\/a>, with close to 225,000 on other platforms\u2014relocated 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI know the comedians liked it, and it was almost like reviving a festival they\u2019d only tried once,\u201d he said about his pitch to owners at Coastal Creative<\/a>. Frombach\u2019s team would run the festival, put their name on it and lean on Coastal for help finding stages.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the biggest comedians, on podcasts and in interviews, always talk about what a good comedy town Tampa Bay is,\u201d Frombach said. \u201c[Crowds] support live comedy, they laugh at the right stuff, they\u2019re not too easily offended or cagey. It just seemed like a good spot.\u201d<\/p>\n 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<\/a>, which will host a literal home run derby to open day two) is 20 minutes away. Other venues include Spitfire Comedy House<\/a> and The Off-Central Theatre<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cComedy\u2019s always better with friends, always better in person. I\u2019ve watched specials I was there for live, then watched the recording, and it didn\u2019t feel nearly as good as the room did,\u201d Frombach added about his motivation to take a swing at another large festival. \u201cA lot of people say they\u2019re fans of comedy and comedians but still haven\u2019t been to a real good live show. I\u2019m trying to give people that chance\u2014and the chance to experience a festival.\u201d<\/p>\n The planning timeline has been kind of nuts. Frombach told CL that his team, which includes \u201cbusiness guy\u201d 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI 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,\u201d he said. That\u2019s true. Side Splitters in Tampa has Sam Tallent this weekend,<\/a> and giants like Bert Kreischer and Tom Segura are actually in town to sign bottles of vodka at liquor stores<\/a>.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t know if Joke Wrld\u2019s 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\u2014talent, Frombach explained, that he had to have at the first festival.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people said yes. Too many people said yes, honestly,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n 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, <\/a>with many based in Los Angeles, New York City and in Frombach\u2019s current hometown of Austin which is home to the Joe Rogan-owned Comedy Mothership.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cKill Tony\u201d 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 (\u201cFart Carnival,\u201d \u201cFitzdog Radio,\u201d \u201cDad Meat\u201d), comedy jams with live bands, a ladies showcase, crowd work shows, and more.<\/p>\n Frombach said the festival is being funded by Joke Wrld, not Rogan, Tony Hinchcliffe or some other entity (although he\u2019d be glad to get money from anyone). \u201cMy 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,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n He also admitted to making bonehead mistakes like pasting the wrong contract to a few people.<\/p>\n \u201cSo some are getting overpaid and some underpaid because of it. Nobody\u2019s said anything, so we\u2019re rolling with it. We\u2019re too close to it to worry at this point,\u201d he said. \u201cI think we\u2019re just not smart enough to know how insane this is, so the only way forward is through.\u201d<\/p>\n Another oversight is local talent. Sunshine Comedy Festival<\/a> 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\u2019ve 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).<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a real lesson\u2014this isn\u2019t a national festival, it\u2019s more of a local thing,\u201d he said, adding that he\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s keeping a sense of humor about it all.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if this goes terrible, so many more people will watch the YouTube video saying we threw comedy\u2019s Fyre Fest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Tickets to Joke World Comedy Festival happening Friday-Saturday, Aug. 14-15 at multiple venues in St. Petersburg are still available and start at $90.<\/a><\/p>\n Pitch in to help make the Tampa Bay Journalism Project a success.<\/a><\/p>\n Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us:\u00a0Google News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0NewsBreak<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reddit<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0BlueSky<\/a><\/p>\n \n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n \t