Leicester Comedy Festival

In the early 1990s, De Montfort University arts administration student, Geoff Rowe[1] proposed a project to his lecturers to set up and run a comedy festival for Leicester.

[2] Rowe called Tony Slattery, Harry Hill and Matt Lucas for the inaugural Leicester Comedy Festival in 1994, with 40 events at 23 venues for 5,000 tickets.

[2] Eshaan Akbar, Jo Brand, Sikisa and Stewart Lee, are now Patrons of The Leicester Comedy Festival, joining Tony Slattery.

[6] Since then many top stand-up comedians have performed in the festival including Jo Brand, Jack Dee, Dave Gorman, Rory Bremner, Simon Pegg, Alan Davies, Bill Bailey, The Mighty Boosh, Johnny Vegas, Rich Hall, Jimmy Carr, Dara Ó Briain, Russell Howard, Dave Spikey, Harry Hill, Greg Davies, Sarah Millican and Romesh Ranganathan.

One's really heavy and the other is a little lighter" and "I love playing PGA Golf, but to say I have a weak shot on the greens would be putting it mildly" [13] The 2017 UK Pun Championships saw a new location in De Montfort Hall and host in Jason Byrne.

"[14] The 2018 UK Pun Championships returned to De Montfort Hall in the boxing ring with host Jason Byrne on 13 February.

After being beaten in the 2015 by Leo Kearse, Rob Thomas returned and beat 2nd time finalist Julian Lee to the title.