HK International Comedy Festival

The festival was founded in 2007 by the stand-up comedian Jami Gong, who is the founder of The TakeOut Comedy Club Hong Kong.^[1][2] As he was in an airplane, he thought of the idea of creating a film festival and wrote his thoughts on a sickness bag.^[3] The first competition featured 20 Hong Kong comedians.^[1] The festival has expanded to include comedians from all over the world.^[1] Participants in the film festival include the American Tom Cotter, the American Chad Daniels, South African Barry Hilton, the Hong Konger Vivek Mahbubani, the Briton John Moloney, the American Paul Ogata, the American Dwayne Perkins, and the American Tom Segura.^[a]

There are separate English and Chinese language competitions with the latter having only a few participants so is substantially tinier.^[7][5] The festival also includes a weekend featuring improvisational comedy.^[3] A panel of judges determines the winner based on three categories: how innovative the material is, how the listeners respond, and the quality of their stage presence.^[3] The prize in 2013 was US$5,000 and three performance opportunities.^[8]

On 31 August 2014, journalist Linda Kennedy's profile of the festival was broadcast on the BBC's The Arts Hour television programme.^[9] The Straits Times in 2016 called it "one of Asia's largest comedy festivals".^[7] In 2016, the 22-year-old Malaysian comedian Hannan Azlan became the first woman and the youngest person to win.^[10][11]