Austin Comedy News: Out of Bounds' 20th Fest, Still Standing's Waitlist and Ron Funches

Austin has two comedy festivals in the next three weeks, and they've reached opposite conclusions about what a comedy festival is. One spreads about 80 acts across five venues. The other puts seven comics at one address on far South Congress and asks you to stand there for most of a day.

Out of Bounds comes first, November 5-8. KUT reports it's the 20th festival in 24 years, the difference being what co-producer Asaf Ronen calls "an obvious hiatus." It started in 2002, partly to fill the hole left by the Big Stinking Comedy Festival, which ran from 1996 to 1999 and shut down amid bankruptcy. So a group of people looked at a comedy festival that had just gone broke and said, I'd like some of that. Founder Jeremy Sweetlamb began with two nights at the Hideout.

Thursday through Saturday, shows run at Fallout (616 Lavaca), ColdTowne (1700 E. Second), the Dougherty Arts Center (1110 Barton Springs) and, for stand-up, Originator Studios (718 Northwestern). Sunday moves to Esther's Follies (525 E. Sixth). The Thursday shows I priced run $22.35 with fees, $17.10 for students, seniors and active military. Sunday at Esther's is $38.10. The $129 badge reserves a seat at anything, and at Thursday's price it pays for itself on your sixth show, around which point you'll have seen something you can't explain to your wife.

The visiting names are Jiavani and Oscar Montoya, both of Dropout's Game Changer and Very Important People, and Zeke Nicholson, who wrote on Wonder Man and A.P. Bio. Each gets paired with a local troupe, and Sunday's Lottery Show lets anyone in the community drop a name in a hat to improvise beside them. It's the only lottery in Texas where winning means you have to go to work. Saturday's Did Someone Say Crowd Work? opens its blurb by thanking Matt Rife, the way a town might thank a flood for the new lakefront. If you'd rather sit in a real club that weekend, Ron Funches is up at Cap City.

Then there's Still Standing, November 21 at the Far Out. Doug Stanhope, Hannibal Buress, Kevin Nealon, Roy Wood Jr., Christina P., Tone Bell and Doug Mellard. The festival's site says tickets are on sale. Its ticket page says sold out and offers a waiting list, so I'd believe the one that isn't trying to sell me anything. The site also spells it "Burress," so at least somebody's getting an extra R for their money. General admission is standing room, gates at 2, done by 11:45, and chairs are banned. Nearly ten hours on your feet. The name isn't a boast, it's the seating plan. It's also all ages, with kids 5 and under free, so somewhere a kindergartner is about to see Doug Stanhope, which is the kind of childhood that eventually produces a comic.

That same night the Long Center has Brett Goldstein, and it bars children under 15. So on November 21 in Austin you can't take a 14-year-old to hear the Ted Lasso guy talk about sex, but you can take a toddler to Stanhope for free. Nobody has ever accused this state of a consistent policy on what's bad for children.

The $5,000 table of ten comes with valet. Any fool can sell you a seat. It takes a real showman to charge $129 and confiscate the chair.