In its first four years, Cream City Comedy Festival staged a total of approximately 60 shows with close to 300 comedians from Milwaukee, Chicago, Madison, New York, and Los Angeles. Even more impressive than the independent comedy festival’s lineup each May is the fact that all the shows were free—with any donations being graciously given to the ACLU and mental health charities.
The donation-based comedy festival was intending to return for a fifth year with a stacked and eclectic lineup of local and national comics performing more than a dozen shows at a variety of Milwaukee venues from May 7-9 to raise funds for United Performing Arts Fund. Unfortunately (but understandably), the fifth annual Cream City Comedy Festival installment won’t be happening this weekend for obvious reasons.
Rather than rescheduling the event to later this year and risk the need to move it again, organizers have made the decision to push the festival to the spring of 2021. Today, Cream City Comedy Festival released the following statement:
“The producers of CCCF 2020 have been closely monitoring the development of COVID-19 and with heavy hearts have decided to officially postpone the 5th Annual Installment until 2021. The health and safety of all involved in this special weekend is most important to us. Given the current circumstances and unclear future of regulations regarding public gatherings, our team has concluded this difficult decision is ultimately in the best interest of Milwaukee and the comedy community. We are currently exploring options for new dates and will make announcements as details progress. We will honor all 2020 performers in next year’s line up, pending their availability. We understand that this pandemic will have lasting and varying economic effects and hope this interim will give us all the opportunity to get back on our feet. We appreciate your understanding and continued support during this challenging time. We look forward to better days and good laughs ahead!”
This announcement comes roughly two weeks after Milwaukee Comedy Festival announced its plans to move their event to October. Stay tuned for more info on Cream City Comedy Festival’s new date as that info becomes available. In the meantime, stay safe and stay inside.