Altitude Comedy Festival’s Marcus Brigstocke and Brett Vincent

A stunning mix of beautiful mountain scenery, fresh snow, some crazy skiing and brilliant comedy from the likes of Jason Byrne, Paul Smith, Deirdre O'Kane, Emmanuel Sonubi and Al Murray – Altitude Festival really is in a league of its own.

In between the knockout standup comedy and knockdown slope descents, we recorded an episode of the AAA Backstage Podcast with promoter Brett Vincent and the event's co-founder, comedian, Marcus Brigstocke. 

Among the many topics covered were the logistics of staging the Clown Hill ski and snowboard race involving both fans and comedians, getting huge stars such as Al Murray and Paul Smith to play intimate venues in the mountains, the camaraderie between everyone involved on both sides of the stage, and how the festival team’s work to keep the event fresh has involved everything from setting fire to the high street to drum and bass pool parties.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome to the latest edition of Axis All Era's Backstage Podcast. We're here in a lovely garden in the valley in Mayerhoff and I'm lucky to be with the co-founder of Altitude Comedy Festival, Marcus Bridgstock, and also the promoter, but Vincent. So I mean it is an absolutely wonderful environment, and I'm very pleased to be here. I mean, obviously you guys have been doing it now for quite some time. I know it wasn't always in Austria, but can you just talk me through a little bit about the kind of uh the history of it? I mean, what made you want to? I can see, having experienced it, why you'd want to be in comedy and ski together, because it's it's a pretty it's a pretty lovely mix. Um, but what was uh what sort of sparked that first?

SPEAKER_01 0:46

In the very first instance, it was pure uh selfishness, and it still is. So I made a phone call. I'd been a comic for maybe three years, I was on the radio a bit, I'd been on telly a bit, you know. And there was a bar in Valzair in France that I'd been to a few times, so I thought, yeah, you could do gigs in there. So I picked up the phone, said, Can I speak to the manager? They put this slightly grumpy bloke on, and uh I said, Look, I'm a stand-up, you don't know who I am, but comedy would work well in the Alps. And he went, What do you mean? And I went, Well, stand-ups, it's easy. Two, three, microphone, done. Apr ski or late night, you decide it's easy. And he went, I don't know, leave it with me. And he phoned me back a week later and he said, Yeah, I like that actually. Get two comics together, come and do some shows. Your brother, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Brett's brother, Andre, and another pal, Dave, Fulton. And the three of us went and we did a gig. And this is for a guy called Richard Lett, who still runs a load of stuff in uh in the French Alps predominantly, and um, from the first moment, it was great, and very quickly, within a year, we were booking a group of comics to go every single week. And I had for a while when I was involved in the in the booking, which you can imagine, I was not gonna I had comics ringing me up going, how do I get this gig? You could wait, you get to be in the mountains, you ski, you snowboard, da da da. So people were falling over themselves to literally to do it, and then Andy Maxwell uh and myself were particularly passionate about the sport part of it, you know, the snowboarding and the skiing, and so we did it as much as we could, and we've always been good mates, and it just sort of I would say that the festival emerged in the best way for a festival to emerge, which is that we reached a point where we were falling forward under the weight of what we were doing because so many people wanted to come, so as soon as we put that together, people went, Yes, please. And the first couple of years we're in France, very difficult, very different from here. My often have been unbelievably supportive, you know. Like from the get-go, they're delighted by what we do in a way. Like, it's it's kind of it's curious to me as well, because it's not like they come to the shows, they sort of think take an interest and they can all speak very good English, but they seem very jolly about the fact that there's all of these people just having such a wonderful time, and they sort of yeah, they're great. So, since Brett took it over and moved it here, set us up here. This is the festival. This is this is now the altitude that we all recognise, and it's um well, you've had a taste of it this week, so you can see like it's absolutely about the mountain, it's absolutely about the village, it's absolutely about the comedy, and it is absolutely about this audience. Like, we we get terrifying for Maxwell and me because we're the same comics, we come every year, right? We have so many people come back to this festival every single year because they just love it. For us, that's difficult because we're like they've seen all our jokes, but that's what also why we do so many different shows.

SPEAKER_04 4:06

Yeah. I wanted to, I mean, just to give a flavour for the listeners and viewers of kind of what this is all about, um, because I understand to come down to this podcast recording, you're fresh from a snowboarding from a glacier, right? Yes, straight off the glacier. Fresh from a glacier, it's lovely. So, can you just kind of talk me through the the last 24 hours, really, uh, in terms of what you've been what you've been doing?

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Yeah, definitely. So um, I for my festival is a little different from some of the other comics, right? I don't drink, so uh it follows a slightly different shape. I get all of my good times from doing comedy, being with mates, and crucially skiing and snowboarding. So last 24 hours, um blah blah blah, where are we? Came off the mountain yesterday, quite an overcast day, not pretty like this. Uh did some writing for the show I'm hosting tonight and got myself ready to be in the Gala show. So last night's Gala was hosted by Andy Maxwell with Deidre O'Kane, who's just she's so great, and I shouldn't say it here, but I do fancy her a bit.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

And then Al Murray, Al Murray on in the middle, the public landlord on in the middle. I doubt Al Murray's done a middle spot as a comic for maybe like 25 years.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

And the thing is, he was so happy, he loved it. Yeah, uh, so then I was on first in the second half, and yeah, I mean it's these um the gigs are superb, they're really fun, but they are definitely concentrate gigs. There's there's no cruising through them, and then Jason Byrne closed it.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

But the thing is, I didn't mean to make it like that. I think when the comedians come together here, there is this kind of one-upmanship or kind of because they're all everyone watches each other throughout the week. So everyone's up on the balcony watching the garlas, and they just see how great everyone's performing. So it is the step-up, so it is I see him pacing behind stages and just looking at notes and what they've done and everything like that, which isn't what normally what happens, they come on and come and do it, but because they're just like, I need to make sure that I show everyone.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

There's all there's also a quite a big element as well of you know, a lot of the comics like they want to have a good gig because they want to come again, yeah, they get a taste of it, and they're like, My lord. I mean, last year, no, two years ago, Dara O'Brien was here closing, and you know, Dara's at the level like Al Murray is like Jason Burners, you very rarely gig with anybody else, you're just out on your own touring, you might take a support act. But Dara was waiting to go on, and Rob Rouse, who you may have seen in the gala the other day, astonishing. Dara was supposed to go on right after him, and he said to me afterwards, that's the first time in a long time I've gone up to the curtain to have a look at what was going on and thought I better concentrate, which is great, and he was so elated by it, you know. He was thrilled. Actually, Al Murray at the second festival we did back in France, he did the pub landlord in French. And when he came off, I swear to you, his eyes were like saucers because he'd had his brain had just he's one of the most clever man's I've ever met. One of the most clever mans I've ever met. Yeah. Staggering. Yeah, Mandem got Finks, yeah. Anyway, one of the cleverest men I've ever met. Uh, but still he he had to just his brain was just firing. And there's there's there's still a lot of that, you know. People we all want our group of pals and colleagues to see us do our best and have a good time.

SPEAKER_04 7:35

You know, so for when it comes to, I mean, uh having experienced it, it's really lovely actually, just to be around all the sort of talents sitting upstairs and you're seeing everyone, all the comedians really supporting each other. It's like a sort of club almost. It's like a sort of holiday club almost for comedians. But it's a really different feeling from anything else I've experienced before. Not in not only in terms of a combination of like, you know, the sports, just know, you know, and uh the setting and the comedy and everything else, and the and the way that you kind of have these little, you know, there's so much going on. It's like one minute there's a podcast up the mountain, next thing you're doing like a down a clown hell race, and you've got you know, you've got ticket buyers and talent kind of you know racing each other, and then you've got you've got uh those big gala shows and the late night kind of drinking shows and the kind of you know the bit more intimate. There's there's so much going on. I mean what when it comes to kind of like how you've orchestrated it, is this something you've kind of evolved over the years, or is it the same sort of model that you've kind of worked with for a while?

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Tweaking it from it has changed a lot, well, probably since 2011 when we just had the Europa House and then adding bits and elements. But to be honest, it's um the Strass Hotel that's here, and Eric that supported us from the beginning, who's opened up his venues to let us use and change and create um spaces with. Um he has like the arena, which is our late show, which is a nightclub and it's a dirty old, proper downstairs, low ceilings, real kind of seedy kind of nightclub. It's the perfect kind of late show for us. It's not for me. So I think adding uh bits and pieces every single year has to because the audience keeps coming back, they have to keep a different element kind of going. But also, due to the way people ski in the day, then they have to eat, then we have to try and get in like the different shows, it has to in a way stay the same as well. So, as much as adding bits and pieces like the podcast on the mountain, um, we've done some crazy things like we have actually set fire to the high street one year. We brought over this was a madness, um yeah, we brought over 40 tons of steel art that was um kind of created into these huge metal burning candles and burning oils and freezing um kind of uh uh it's just this massive art piece, but it was from the bottom of the high street to the top of the high street. Tomorrow night we had this beautiful festival festival of lights where we set fire to our high street up a mountain, which was quite crazy. So we've got we've added weird elements into each kind of one. This year was the opening three party, which um should have been on the high street, but it was in a tucked-out little bit. Um so yeah, so I think once we get that on the high street, it's just to try it out to see if it could actually work. And once we get that on the high street, that'll be another new element to open up the festival. We're always trying bits and pieces. We're gonna do a um we're gonna do a baptasia.

SPEAKER_04 10:18

Wow, what's that?

SPEAKER_02 10:19

With uh so Ben and uh so the Reverend Michael Alabama Church, uh from Oh My God, it's the church, and Sister Mary Lou baptize a whole audience um to drum and bass and comedy in a swimming pool with huge log flumes and jacuzzi areas and things like that, but having a massive kind of instead of a day of doing another app race go, we all go to the swimming pool and have a crazy uh pool party and get baptized by a we had uh we had Norman J play one of our pool parties once.

SPEAKER_03 10:53

Really?

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah, Norman J, MBE. When we were looking, there's a the the story when when it all very first began about how we'd all agreed, you know, an amount of money we thought we could afford, hopefully we wouldn't lose it, and then there's this photo of Maxwell and me and these other two in a swimming pool the day we realised we'd lost a quarter of a million. We're like, we're all in shock. But you can you look at the other photos from that pool party and you go, Well, yeah, I mean, there's Norman J. I mean, that might be part of it. I'm glad to say we've lessons have been learned since then.

SPEAKER_04 11:27

Yeah, talking about kind of high-level talent. I mean, the it's really it's it's I mean, one of the really lovely things about it is it's somewhere you come and um discover new kind of up and coming comedians, but then you've got some pretty old, you know, big names. You mentioned Al Murray earlier on, but you know, you've got Paul Smith, who clearly is that his tour now is kind of multiple in each city, bigger range shows, you know, is is is is uh tough of his game if he doesn't get any bigger if you like, but it's you know it's uh he's a huge star.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Um there aren't there aren't loads now of of the really massive names who we haven't managed to coax over here. One annoying one is Russell Howard, because Russell really wants to come. I know he wants to come. We've unless he's lied to us again and again again. I know he wants to come, but he's also like such a busy man and a family man, that's always a consideration. But the festival increasingly is quite family focused. I mean, your two nippers are here, and you know, Billy's my little boy's been, and then my kids, my big kids, have sort of grown up being at the festival every year. So hopefully we'll we'll coax him over. I mean, there's always always new names, but people I I've not I've genuinely not heard from anybody afterwards who didn't love it, yeah, who didn't love it and want to come back, you know. Oh no, wait, there's my wife and Limac. Oh yeah. Limac doesn't much enjoy travel, and he and his family came down when it was about years ago when it was in France, and I think the journey took them about three days. Oh, really? By the time they arrived, they were frazzled. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:02

So how do you kind of curate it then? Obviously, you've got these big names, you've got you know, a whole spread of of talent at different stages of their career, if you like. Uh is it a case of kind of you know, you're literally kind of just uh selecting people that are applying to come here? Is it kind of are you kind of literally trying to get you you proactively kind of selecting a different balance of hit of names? How does it work?

SPEAKER_02 13:24

A lot of the time it is that I have to balance. I mean, I've been booking comedy nearly twenty well, yeah, 25 years, so and I've always kind of years ago was like, I need to get the right demographics right for every kind of show that I book. Because I remember going to kind of buttlings as a as a kid with loads of other lads and watching 60-year-old guys talk about things we would never know about. And just having knowing that knowing what the audience want, I think, is a is a different thing. And then here for the locals as well as for selling tickets in the UK to bring people here, I need the big names. What we call the whales. Yeah. We have to we have to land some whales very early on to make sure that the we kind of do it. And the the kind of new comedians, I mean, it sets to the venue that I have. Like the late show has built up quite a reputation of it being a no-holes barred kind of uh anything can like happen, kind of late show. So so they're kind of like the easy booking.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

This whole nonsense of like, oh, you can't say anything anymore. We get it. All the comics I know we get this, you know, people going, oh, it must be so hard these days, you can't say anything, can you? Absolutely not true. Come here, yeah, come here and see, you know. I don't mean I don't mean that people here are being needlessly gross or needlessly bullying or unkind to any particular group of people. It's not like it's not horrible, but it's also, you know, like this this is a smart audience. You know, they've they've been to loads of shows and and also they see everything. I mean, last year we had Tim Vine, you know, Tim is one of, if not the greatest jokesmith that has ever been, just joke after joke after joke, and it was beautiful seeing kids in you know, teenagers, young teenagers, through all of the cool comics in their 20s and early 30s, through all of us up, you know, average audiences down there, 30, 40, 50, some in their 60s, every single age group doubled over crying with laughter. You know, it's sort of, I mean, a bit of subtle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's incredible. Incredible.

SPEAKER_04 15:30

And you're talking about that sort of repeat custom for what I'm about putting in, but that loyalty maybe. Um I think Tom Branson, who's an Access All Aeros 100 involved in that scheme that we did, is a lovely guy, obviously does your production, but he was telling me that um, you know, it's remember about 70%, 75%, I think, is is repeat kind of buyers. Um, so I mean that that helps you kind of know that obviously you're gonna sell that certain amount of tickets that's that's um really beneficial in that way. Is that kind of are there any kind of any ambitions or any um are you kind of actively looking to grow the event in terms of the audience size?

SPEAKER_02 16:03

I mean, strangely, I've always had like I've got loads of ideas for the festival, but I've also brought some of the greatest kind of what I say the greatest minds in comedy. So um Bruce Hills who used to run the Montreal JFL Montreal Festival, Kevin Healy, who runs the Galway Comedy Festival, uh Marcel Hoger runs um the Rotterdam Comedy Festival, and I've brought them all here and said, what would you do? What would you do? And they all just go, We absolutely love it, don't mess with it, don't change a thing. Yeah, and you kind of go, and and I but like because our audiences have so much fun, and I know that it's I don't know, it's not I think sometimes making it bigger could disrupt it in a way. Yeah, um I'm not making kind of any money, and it is it is it's uh it's uh love of um labour of love, it's it's so good.

SPEAKER_04 16:48

So it is that um I was gonna say it feels to me, I mean just to see the comedians all together, and also you know, the way that the audience are merging with the talent of everyone seems to every you know kind of sit down there and have breakfast in the morning, and everyone's walking past, all comedians are sort of saying good morning to us, it's just a lovely feeling, yeah. It's a really really nice kind of um vibe.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Just to pick up on that, like that is a really important part of the festival that has emerged organically, yeah, and it's you know, up the comic end of that, it's even as far as there's a naked sauna, actually, underneath where we are discussing this, uh, where uh people who saw my set last night and laughed at the high status thing that I was doing, me in charge of everyone with the microphone, will see my penis in about 25 minutes. And it's how it is. I mean, when my wife, Rachel Parris, who came out here and played, we were in this in the steam room, and this bloke, he was so nice about it, he was lovely. He sat down, he wouldn't look at it, he just sat down next to him and went.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

I just want to say I'm a really big fan.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

She's sitting there, butt naked, and that you know, there is a there is a a really lovely familial feeling to it, which you know, uh not this year, but I have in the past felt like oh god, I hope new people don't feel shut out from any of that. So I sort of have kept an eye on it, and actually, I don't think they do. I think people feel very hopefully they feel very welcomed in to that to that feeling because the comics are just all over the town and keen to hear not what you thought of their gig but how your day was. Did you have a ski lesson? Me too. I tried, I fell, I did da da da da. And it, you know, from the from the get-go, that silly thing of what did we do? We strapped impractical planks to our feet and slid dangerously near to a cliff edge. And that's what we did. Paid a fortune to be pulled up the hill in order to try not to die while sliding down it. That's a pretty great shared shared experience, you know. And the only note I ever give to comics who come here, and I only ever give it to the ones who who are not into winter sports, is don't be cynical about that. Not for my benefit, I can deal with it, I'm a grown-up. But the people who come here for whom the comedy and the and the sliding in whatever form that comes, like it's the one thing, it'll turn a crowd real quick if they slag it off. If they do what most do and go, I tried, it's hard, I failed, da da da, then everyone loves them for it because that's uh sort of connection.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

I've seen I've seen some of the biggest comics open with something like, Oh, like, yeah, you're all posh to ask, yeah, and this is yeah, skiing shit, and you watch that, you watch that superstar comic, then really on stage will just have to work that crazy. Absolutely, right, yeah. They've realised, they realize very early on that they said that.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:51

Can't get quite away.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

So much so, like I mention it to people now. I always just say, like, the only thing you need to know, this audience won't enjoy you slagging off skiing. Because it's because anywhere else, not anywhere else, but in a lot of things, you know, like if I play Glastonbury, Latitude, you know, uh where am I going? Um candle calling and stuff like that, you know, and you can you can you can have a pop at a band, not too much, but you can have a little pop at a band, you can mention the toilets and da da da. You can be a bit sceptical about about things, and that's it's always fine, you know. People are not gonna go, but if you showed up and went music festivals are shit, yeah, people have paid everything and fought to get that ticket for that weekend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're there to enjoy themselves, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:42

Yeah, I was I'm just in terms of you know talking about that whole vibe you get with the comedians together and the way they're treating people and the sort of the the fact that you can just see them, they're not walking around kind of full of their own egos, they're just relaxed and you know, they're sitting next to each other, butt naked, or whatever they're doing. But um, how important, I mean, you know, from your perspective, obviously, you know, you're agent for a lot of comedians, you know, you've done this for a long time, work with a lot of different comedians. How it is it kind of almost like a sort of like a therapy trip for some of them, do you think? So you have a week where you get to change idea, you know, exchange ideas, be together. There's an it there's a relatively intimate crowd, so it's it's you know easy enough to relax.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

It is it is a fantastic place to be, and there is a couple of comedians here this year that are in that in that thing, and it is it is a place to come and be creative, to learn, to chat to other comics, to go and see stuff and to get that back. A lot of these comedians don't get to see this much comedy as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

No.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

So being it and seeing how much like the game is or how other peers are doing, it's it's an incredible place to to come and watch it. And um and I think it does it, it helps you write. You'll see comedians constantly coming up with ideas in the sorters, naked, sitting down, helping each other write, or topping off jokes because they're watching their mates do maybe their new material, they'll go over and they'll give them a topper, which is an extra joke like to the joke, right? an extra punchline or things like that. So it is it's it's like the camaraderie here during the festival is yeah it's it's it's a different kind of feeling. And as much as it used to be very I would say drunken every night at five o'clock in the morning every single night it is more sensible that they do want to learn they do want to go skiing now.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

They've kind of done that they now want to be up there, be up the mountain be a bit more part of that as well as this and and that whole thing as well you know of like incidentally you just go and get a bite to eat before or after the show or whatever and just incidentally oh there's such and such you know comics I don't necessarily know that well you sit down chat to them get to know them and all the rest of it that's it yeah it's just really special then it's lovely. It's helpful too as Brett was saying you know like it it's helpful it makes you focus a bit on creativity all the all the big comedy festivals Edin Edinburgh's always done it. Edinburgh's always been a sort of punctuation point for the comedy but yeah those moments of coming together they change everything.

SPEAKER_04 22:59

I mean it's certainly true that there is a uh disproportionate number of comedians with some material about winter sports a fact that makes me enormously proud I'm just thinking um purely from the sort of the music festival side of things obviously and also like the concert business generally you know Live Nation's been extremely acquisitive over the last sort of five to ten years or so you know AG's a very big player I guess superstructed are what the second biggest uh music festival creator uh in the world that whole market that whole I've seen that change quite dramatically in the last five years I mean but it's that's been happening for quite some time.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

When it comes to your sort of independence here um I guess the question is is that something that's kind of impacting the comedy world so much and um would you very much be protective of uh your independence I've seen some of my best festivals turn into just money making machines and greed machines and and the Edinburgh festival is now it's a greed like there is too much greed up there from from different things and for me I've grown up with performers I've I've seen them at the lowest and at the highest and I've seen them where it is to have so much now being like the the the change in music and seeing like the difference between Spotify and and Live Nation and Ticketmaster it is now creeping into comedy so trying to keep as much as we can as independent as we can and um really yeah I mean it's very difficult because I mean the comedians when it comes to when it comes to sponsorship it's very for them to go to the Instagram style. There isn't many kind of like big sponsors or big corporations that are going into comedy but Live Nation will be the first and they will kind of do exactly what they've done in music to comedy because there is so much money in comedy as well as music so that will take over and yeah I mean that's the thing with all the big the big companies I mean Superstruct owns Snowbombing that's here that's that's the festival that um I worked with in the beginning that's what brought Attitude to my offer in the first place. Gareth was kind enough Gareth and Eric who runs the str the Strass and Gareth and Snowbombing kind enough to to let us come here to see the venues do some shows here and it worked really well and um Gareth and before Superstruck took over snow bombing was really really helpful and I think snowballing has changed very much as well since it's since it's been here it was like coming here and seeing 6,000 people back in the day like the nine well not um uh like 2000 like ended end of the 2000s it was crazy when you had 6,000 party English on the mountain coming down and and then when we did it in 2011 to play to that audience and have such an eclectic bunch of like snowboarders skiers because that was very much their big thing they'd have four and a half thousand five thousand people on the mountain just for party jumps and skims and crazy it became a a real big kind of snowboarding party and it still is and I think Superstructs it has become more of a music there's a lot of people over here for the music now and not so many people up the mountain as wellness adventures and spas and treatments and I mean this is a it's a particularly good the the Tyrollian valley setup right where skiing happens up a cliff and actually the towns are all lovely places to be this is nice to walk around and it's not on the incline that you need most ski resorts to be so it's a nice villagey place to walk around and I know obviously lots and lots of the comics and um you know our our punters who come lots don't go up the mountain much they'll go up and you know walk around and see events and da da da but it's a this is a fun place to be if you don't if you don't ski. That's it um yeah and I think that's what's changed over the years as well we were lucky to get that very early on as well as getting the comedian like the comedy fans and the snowboard like and the skiers and snowboarders having that kind of change I think there's becoming more and more of that as well and I think again for for snowboarding that are here and and that and seeing that that change in from the party absolute even like when I when we started this festival not you um but when we started this festival the nights out that we every comedian's had and every kind of how it was that party party party at preski after the shows and party after it and it's not we all want to go up the mountain. Yeah yeah yeah yeah it's a uh it's a very much a different kind of era that's coming into it. Yeah there's some there's hardcore in both directions you know like I'm first lift last lift if I can up at eight on the lift by 830 out there until you know half five if I can last lift we're getting tutted at by Austrian lift runners going it's closed but all right get the money you know and then there's others who are like you know as soon as the late show ends they're like here we go yeah I've no idea who they are I don't even meet them there's a there's a few bars in town that our late show finishes at one yeah yeah then so when everyone goes to a place called Scotland Yard of Scott is that's open till three English pub and there's a place called At Propose which is another Austrian basement which opens at opens at midnight and shuts well it shuts when it wants to but five or six depending on wow so you really can and what sort of people end up there that's me last night what for the first time this week um but yeah it's um there's I mean even though there's so many great venues in this town which we don't use yeah it's a place called the Brookenstrauder which you have to check out it's it's about 1500 2000 crazy Apre ski venue that at 530 pm is absolutely going off to umpar donk oh umpar techno yeah yeah donk which is just absolute crazy and then there's just 2000 Germans in there with their skis just giving it absolute nutterage and there's a few of these dotted like dotted all the way round as well some of them I've nipped Finkenberg as well yeah yeah there's I think there's one called the witch's tavern as all the advertising I just passed it on the way down from the glass yeah all the advertising is a woman in a really really low rent witch's costume from a costume shop like the worst end of uh kind of Halloween sexy witch tat we should put shows on in there yeah find something yeah we've done some strange venues we've done I took I found the oldest cabaret bar in this Tyrollian Valley it was built in something like 1492 as a barn. The one down the valley yeah the valley it's lovely it's like ridiculously old barn and then in something like 1890 it was turned into the cabaret venue for the for the whole kind of valley and it's only a 150 seat like so old like decked out kind of little balconies and it all creaks because it's all just slotted wood everywhere and um so yeah we took we we bust 150 people down there yeah and we basically put on a massive um buffet because there was no way there was no way that everyone could eat so we've got a massive buffet for everyone and then we had we did a night of comedy in this like the oldest uh cabaret venue in the whole probably in the whole of well not Austria but the Tyrolean Valley and yeah and Zimbertau. So you're evolving it all the time really in terms of like you've got plenty of uh scope to yeah to adapt it or move it off we did a we tried to do a Guinness World Records um uh highest ever silent disco on the top of the glacier 3250 metres um then we found out it cost us 10 grand to bring the to bring the judge up so we'll just do it anyway we might need that far yeah we'll do the second highest yeah yeah and uh so yeah so we had a right giggle up there and yeah we just coach people off and we do things and at one point we'll coach them up and we'll do these there's this huge run um down a mountain just about a mile away and you all sit on big rubber rings and you can do races so we'll probably do that at some point next year and yes please talking of races you've got the clownhill race obviously that was yesterday wasn't it the clownhill race in I just looked at that and thought there's no way I'm doing that yeah we've had a little bit of I mean we've had loads of snow and the so much is amazing powder is amazing but yeah it's been what we call a white out so it's that grey fog.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Yeah so we sent what was about 70 80 people down a blue red black run because it's blue then red then goes black run in uh it's kind of I think it's a good metaphor for the festival actually that there's a blue there's a red there's a black you know there's this a something there for like if blue skiers can take part in the race yeah and they can peel off to the side and they've had their own race they've started with everybody else red skiers can peel off slightly further on yeah and and the rest of us away down to the bottom and see what's what and there's a lovely uh you know the restaurant bar at the bottom there on days like this where there's big sky and stuff and you see people like half an hour after the race is over coming in like probably me it's great man it's great yeah that's so fun it's oddly by the way I mean I have to put my hand up to it everybody knows me but like it's pretty competitive that race you've won it a few times haven't you yeah yeah yeah but only uh say won it I mean I've won like fastest comedian but I mean that's you know we're not talking a very very high level we have yeah Ollie who is 17 17 year old yeah he won it last year too the one of sheeps being he there's a lot of banter with something Ollie so he won it last year at 16 years old and um yeah he's broken all records that we've ever had before wow like I mean my boy Alf is unbelievably quick unbelievably quick yeah and he's seen Ollie's ski and gone right okay well there's something wrong with him yeah there is absolutely no fear in that boy no no and uh yeah I've I don't even know people that have come down that in that in that time it was something like six minutes wasn't it or seven minutes is it really it's five and a half kilometers that I think it was six minutes yeah yeah ridiculous like I don't think he even turns right he's he's like he's up there with all the Austrian like all the the um the teachers what they call the ski instructors he's like way up like with them and uh yeah it's incredible so yeah so we get those kind of guys we've also got a guy that's bit uh taking part in the um we're here with the Brits this week as well so the Brits snowboard championships yeah and um so they all go up the mountain as well and they're all like doing massive tricks and wowie kind of spins and kind of crazy uh snowboarding um kind of tricks so a few people go over there and watch that and we've actually got one of the guys that comes to Alchitude competing in it um who's been for a few years so he's he's he he absolutely loves it so because there's a yeah there's a big um snowboard park um on the mountain so they use that and it's yeah good bunch.

SPEAKER_02 34:18

Yeah it's great for them.

SPEAKER_04 34:20

I was um it's nice to come here on the back of you guys winning the uh Access Hall areas uh uh best live uh event of Europe category uh which I I notice is on my my uh on the West Band on the West Band we would yeah there's been a few kind of comments uh because Andrew Maxwell was obviously um presenting our award so many it was only just about when he was to announce it was like it's a co-found but yeah I mean is that I mean obviously you know awards are what they are that's that sort of help with marketing and everything else I guess. How sort of important I suppose is the question are those kind of things to you guys. I mean you've been around for a long time it's very well established but is it still sort of important to get recognised like that?

SPEAKER_02 35:00

I mean I mean we um we can believe it I as you know I wasn't there because I didn't believe we were going to win so it was a case of um uh it was yeah it's it's it's great it's great to be recognised in in this kind of thing I mean comedy isn't recognised enough in a lot of these festival awards as well I mean um with the festival um people we have we've been a part of probably 50 or 60 festivals over the years um doing the comedy at the festivals yeah and um I used to go to these awards like growing up when I used to be part of the festivals it was great being a part of it and winning it so now with my own festival kind of being a part of it and winning it is I love it.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

In a really broad sense there's this thing that's always been a factor in getting people at the festival right is circle one that's people who like winter sports and can afford to come and do them and circle two is people who like comedy enough to want to see lots of it and be interested in going to see comics outside of where you would normally see them and see us do something a bit different and then you've got the circle you know the middle where those two overlap that Venn diagram is you know it's a certain group of people and where an award like an award that says you know the best live event that makes I I think a big difference to tell people look this is a this is a cracking thing. You don't have to be really good at skiing or even that into skiing or really obsessively into comedy to have an amazing time here. You can dip your toe do a bit of sledging see some of the shows spar da da da you know like so I it well it means a lot to me I think it's great to have anything like that that says yeah that really works and it's a good time.

SPEAKER_04 36:49

It's a good time it's great to see the judges come in because obviously there was quite a stiff competition in that category and it was kind of like very very clear in terms of the scoring and it was just like you know I thought actually having done the interview with you and everything else and seeing that come in those results come in I was really pleased and then to come out and actually experience it I've got to say it's not it's like nothing I've ever attended before. It's a good time in it you know you get the adrenaline up there probably not comparable to anything you're doing up there but even just going down the steady slope for me is quite scary.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

But it is it is comparable it is it totally is that's the that's the whole magic of it is that all the all the people doing that for the first time I'm elated by it as someone who's really passionate about I'm elated by it and I love seeing people go oh I did this today I did this today I did this today because the same is still true for me I'm like oh I did this today it's still like there's always something new to do so yeah yeah and the adrenaline's the adrenaline right yeah feels so good.

SPEAKER_04 37:47

And then and then you know that whole mix of being in a lovely location when you come down as you said the town's you know it's got lots of lots of lots to offer and then having a good belly laugh in the evening. So I mean it's just been brilliant. So um yeah thanks for joining me guys thanks for having me at your event and uh as I say it's it's it's uh a wonderful unique uh event to visit