Make Us Laugh

May 1st, 2008 at 06:54pm Michael Conniff 2

The news that the Wheeler Opera House will be home to a new comedy festival this Memorial Day is great news for Aspen, if not quite as good as the possibility that HBO might one day return for the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival (USCAF).

The Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival is coming in a partnership between the Wheeler Opera House and the Rooftop Comedy operation based in San Francisco.

“We’re looking at an annual festival, to take place this time of year,” Wheel House executived director Gram Slaton told a local newspaper. “It’s unclear whether any other group will pull together an HBO-type festival. That’s not going to be quite as easy as it used to be. Two years will have passed by, and a lot of those connections are gone.”

The news takes some of the sting out of the loss of the HBO festival, which hurt in more ways than one. Hotel bookings for that time in March were off 15 percent this year, compared to a 96 percent occupancy rate in 2007.

But there's more to it than that. The HBO Comedy Fest was the one event every year that guaranteed star power like no other in Aspen, where stars are rarely seen. The lobby of the St. Regis during fest time was beyond festive, and you were likely to bump into Chris Rock or Drew Carey or Diane Keaton--or just about anyone from the A-list of comedy.

And the performances were often spectacular. Not the big shots necessarily, but the emerging stars the HBO Comedy Fest was always known for. Not to mention the movies: the Isis was chock-a-block with movies round-the-clock that almost always made you laugh.

What went wrong? The time of year was all wrong for Aspen Skiing Company because comics don't ski or snowboard and Skico wanted those beds for the more mountainous types in March. Nobody ever adequately explained why the fest could simply slide to another season to make it work. A change at the top of HBO sealed the festival's fate.

No matter. The USCAF is actively looking for a new sponsor, and now we have the Aspen Rooftop fest to chuckle at. Now if only we could learn to laugh at ourselves, life in Aspen would be funnier than ever.

Entry Filed under: Aspen, Business, Colorado, Comedy, Stars, Pitkin County, Television, The West, United Post