Lucille Ball Comedy Festival

The Lucille Ball Comedy Festival is an annual festival that takes place in Jamestown, NY. Lucille Ball’s vision was an annual festival of comedy that would support rising comedians in her hometown.

Lucille Ball worked with the Arts Council in Jamestown to develop a comedy festival and comedy film festival in her hometown in the late 1980s. Ball was to visit and attend the first-ever Lucille Ball Festival of New Comedy, as well as accept an honorary degree at Jamestown Community College commencement in the spring of 1989. Unfortunately, Lucille Ball passed away in April 1989 before attending the festival that would attract thousands of Lucy fans and contemporary comedy lovers alike.

Since the festival started in 1991, The Lucille Ball Comedy Festivals has featured performances by Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno, Lewis Black, Ray Romano, Ellen DeGeneres, Paula Poundstone, Joan Rivers, Bob Newhart, George Wallace, Billy Gardell, and many more.