Kevin Hart and Russell Peters to headline Vancouver’s Great Outdoors Comedy Festival

by Bridget Stringer-Holden on July 11th, 2023 at 12:33 PM

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While many of us have become accustomed to sitting alone in our PJs watching comedy specials on Netflix, the Great Outdoors Comedy Festival is bringing us the opportunity to see world-class comedians perform in-person right here in Vancouver.

First in the lineup of shows at Stanley Park is Russell Peters, who was recently awarded the accolade of one of Rolling Stone’s 50 Best Comics of All Time. In 2007, he was the first comedian to sell out Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, and has since broken the comedy show attendance record at London’s O2 Arena—which is one of the busiest arenas in the world, in terms of ticket sales.

Peters will be performing on Friday, September 15 alongside Reggie Watts, a comedian and bandleader on The Late Late Show with James Corden, and Steph Tolev, a Canadian comedian who received a JUNO Award nomination for Comedy Album of the Year in 2020.

Emmy- and Grammy-nominated comedian Kevin Hart will close the festival on September 16. His recent tour was named the #1 Comedy Tour of 2022 by Billboard, and he was awarded the People’s Choice Award for Comedy Act of 2022. Hart’s performance will be a phone-free experience—a good excuse to unplug.

The Great Outdoors Comedy Festival spans coast to coast, starting in Edmonton and also hitting Halifax and Calgary, each one with its own unique lineup.

The festival acknowledges that the performances will be help on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. “We are grateful to be a guest on their territory,” Brennan McFaul, Vice President of Trixstar Entertainment, shares in a press release. “Vancouver is known as an international city that is a tremendous supporter of the arts.”

A portion of festival proceeds will also support Talaysay Tours, which creates Indigenous cultural experiences, as well as the Stanley Park Ecology Society. In the past, the Great Outdoors Comedy Festival has raised over $90,000 for various charities and societies, and works to employ people facing barriers in the job market, such as homelessness.