Come early March, windowfronts throughout downtown Grand Rapids display yellow signs anticipating the arrival of Gilda’s LaughFest. Businesses swoop up seats by the tableful, sponsoring evenings of employee bonding at Dr. Grins Comedy Club. Sidewalks outside theaters, performance halls and rock clubs swell with throngs sporting smiling yellow “High Five” buttons. Situated nearer to Lake Michigan than Detroit, the ten-day festival steadfastly grapples with lingering winter chill. But for a city already priding itself on local art, craft beer, robust cheese and all things Gerald R. Ford, LaughFest heralds both the impending arrival of spring and an outpouring of community involvement.
“In bigger cities with comedy festivals, you can be there and not even know it’s happening,” says LaughFest director Joanne Roehm. “Here the community feels really intertwined with it; that they are a part of it. There’s this ownership. You can’t really be here during those ten days and not know that it’s happening.”
This year’s sixth edition ran March 10 through 20 with net proceeds benefitting Gilda’s Club Grand Rapids, a non-profit honoring original Saturday Night Live cast member and Michigan native Gilda Radner, who died in 1989 of ovarian cancer at age 42. The group annually provides more than 10,000 locals with free emotional-health support in ongoing struggles against cancer and grief.
A Gilda’s Club DBA (Doing Business As entity), LaughFest shares resources and staff (including Roehm). Meaning unlike other modern festivals emerging across the country in record numbers, LaughFest 2016 served as a large-scale charity fundraiser encompassing roughly two hundred fifty events at more than fifty locations for approximately forty thousand to fifty thousand attendees.
Donation initiatives and options abound. The High Five button campaign—signifying the wearer handed event volunteers $5 specifically earmarked for children’s cancer, grief and in-school programs—received a matched donation from the Peter C. and Emajean Cook Foundation. Some ten dozen corporate sponsorship contributions ranged upwards in tiered levels of “Gigglers,” “Chucklers,” “Belly Laughers,” etc. March 12’s An Evening with Seth Meyers Signature Event raised $250 per person at DeVos Place’s five thousand-capacity Steelcase Ballroom.
“People are excited about comedy, but there’s also an association with the cause behind it,” says Roehm. “It’s helped it build and grow because people aren’t coming out just to see awesome shows, but they also want to support a cause that’s close to home and that’s important to them.”
LaughFest’s emotional appeal further extends to the realm of physical betterment. The festival’s LaughterRx program focused on the proven health benefits laughter bestows. In addition to a contest for competitors boasting the “Best Laugh,” disability and women’s-empowerment discussions, a 5K FUNderwear Run (goofy undergarments atop running gear), and daily Laughter Yoga sessions engaged in exploring lighter sides of serious issues. Referring to the festival’s yellow upturned-mouth insignia, LaughFest continued its #YellowUp social-media campaign encouraging the simple sharing of smiles.
Additional programming included a Chris Farley Costume Contest, comedy-trivia night, pet parade, local celebrity lip-syncing, art exhibits, clowning lessons, free lunchtime comedy programming (plus food trucks and Zumba), creative and literary workshops, ‘zine how-tos for teens, a family-activity carnival, kids’ joke-telling at the public library and baby-disco parties.
Says Roehm, “We make sure there was all kind of different programming so all different types of people and even families can come out and be a part of it too.”
Live-comedy shows encompassing an array of audience tastes and performer capabilities reflected the overarching vibe of inclusion. “Every year it’s intentional to have a diversity of styles,” notes Jamison Yoder of LaughFest booking agency Funny Business. “Programming it for the community means clean-comedy options, homegrown talent and community showcases among the variety of genres and styles and types of venues.”
Yoder and Roehm agree the first few years of LaughFest were integral to consumer trust-building, pointing to continuous trial, error and evolution to ensure LaughFest offered comedy options for every taste.