New comedy festival to take over downtown Las Vegas in May

If Dave Attell is the only headliner for the new Crapshoot Comedy Festival you might have seen on the Strip, that’s intentional.

“We wanted comedians that you would have to go to L.A. or New York to see, that may be a little more alternative,” says Paul Chamberlain, founder and organizer of the festival that will unfold in six East Fremont Street venues May 18 to 20.

Crapshoot will spend most of its first-year budget on less familiar stand-ups and podcasters in small venues, ranging from the roof of Commonwealth to the old Las Vegas City Council chambers in what is now the Zappos headquarters.

“The topography of East Fremont lends itself tremendously to a walking festival in which the venues are perfect for comedy,” Chamberlain says of the event that also utilizes the El Cortez, Beauty Bar, Fremont Country Club and Inspire Theater.

A walkable festival creates “a communal bonding effect,” he says. “People end up in a bar with a schedule they’re circling.” All the shows added together would have a collective capacity of about 10,000 people.

Caesars Palace hosted a big-budget comedy fest co-produced by HBO from 2005 through 2008. But it struggled to stand out as a special event when so many of its comedians played Las Vegas the rest of the year.

Crapshoot’s lineup includes stand-ups with exposure from the late-night talk shows, Comedy Central stand-up specials or “Last Comic Standing” — names such as Fahim Anwar, Kurt Braunohler, Byron Bowers, Morgan Murphy, Aparna Nancherla, Beth Stelling and Jesus Trejo.

Podcasters will have a major presence as well, with Bert Kreischer’s “Bertcast” (Kreischer is also doing a stand-up set), the “About Last Night” team of Adam Ray and Brad Williams and the team of Corinne Fisher and Krystyna Hutchinson among the podcasts expected to originate from the festival.

Chamberlain staged the Maui Comedy Festival in 2014 and last year coordinated the stand-up programming that was new to the Life Is Beautiful festival downtown.

The size of the music and arts festival made it a challenge “to get people to sit down, calm down and begin to absorb,” he says. But “it also showed us the hunger” for comedy beyond the big-ticket names on the Strip.

Inclusive passes are available now for $179, $299 and $999, through Ticketfly.com and crapshootcomedyfestival.com. Individual show tickets for shows will go on sale when the final lineup is announced March 20.

“This is a moonshot for us,” Chamberlain says. “There’s nobody shrugging their shoulders going, ‘Oh well, it’s the first year. Get it right next year.’ It all has to be right this year.”

Read more from Mike Weatherford at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com and follow @Mikeweatherford on Twitter.