Kansas City’s Fountain City Comedy Festival returns with top comedians, 20 shows across the metro in mid-September

Stephen Taylor on stage at BotB. // Photo by

Get ready to dive into three days of non-stop laughter as the third annual Fountain City Comedy Festival is set to make waves across the city. With co-founders Stephen Taylor, a Louisiana native who launched his stand-up comedy career in Kansas City, and AJ Wilkerson, this year’s festival promises to be bigger and funnier than ever.

The festival runs across 10 venues in the Kansas City Metro area and will feature over 20 shows and showcase 60 of the best comedians from around the country and locally. 

Some of the headliners include Beth Stelling, who has appeared on Netflix, Comedy Central and Connan, and Joyelle Nicole Johnson who was featured on HBO Max and Late Night with Seth Meyers. 

The Fountain City Comedy Festival will take over some of Kansas City’s most notorious venues, including MTH at Crown Center, recordBar, The Ship, Knucklehead’s, The Bird Comedy Theater, Barrel of the Bottoms, and more. From classic comedy clubs to spots like Tintoretta Tattoo and Hillsiders, each venue promises an eccentric experience for attendees.

This festival is a community-supported and funded event, with sponsorship from MADE MOBB, West Bottoms Whiskey, La Cultura, and Standard Wellness – The Forest. Fountain City Comedy Festival highlights not only Kansas City’s thriving comedy scene but also the city’s support for local arts and entertainment.

“We’re figuring out how to do an event like this. We always had comedy shows but to do 20 of them in a weekend with really high-quality comics, with legitimate industry credits who may have passed over Kansas City in previous years is crazy.  So we’ve doubled in size, We’ve gone from four headlining shows to six headlining shows. Then, the big thing is the sponsors. I think the community got behind it this year. So we’ve got Made Mob supporting us. We’ve got West Bottoms Whiskey, La Cultura, we have a dispensary sponsor this year. And so it’s all just like Kansas City brands. I think it’ll be big. It’s going to be a lot more community-centered and a lot bigger this year,” Taylor says.

“I think that my favorite thing is surprising people, catching people off guard. That’s my favorite part about comedy is making somebody aware of something that maybe they weren’t before and I think the shows do a really good job of that,” Taylor says. 

For more information, including show schedules and ticket details, visit the website.