The Comedy Festival, formerly known as the US Comedy Arts Festival, is a comedy

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

 festival

Festival

A festival or gala is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community and the Festival....

 held each year in Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...

. From its 1985 inception to 2007, it was held annually at the Wheeler Opera House

Wheeler Opera House

The Wheeler Opera House is located at the corner of East Hyman Avenue and South Mill Street in Aspen, Colorado, United States. It is a stone building erected during the 1890s, from a design by Willoughby J. Edbrooke...

 in Aspen

Aspen, Colorado

The City of Aspen is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the city population was 5,804 in 2005...

, Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

. The primary sponsor of the festival was HBO, with co-sponsorship by Caesars Palace

Caesars Palace

Caesars Palace is a luxury hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, an unincorporated township in Clark County, Nevada, United States in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. Caesars Palace is owned and operated by Caesars Entertainment Corp....

 (the primary venue), TBS, GEICO

GEICO

The Government Employees Insurance Company is an auto insurance company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway that as of 2007 provided coverage for more than 10 million motor vehicles owned by more than 9 million policy holders. GEICO writes private passenger automobile insurance...

 Insurance, Twix

Twix

Twix is a chocolate bar made by Mars, Inc., consisting of a biscuit finger, topped with caramel and coated in milk chocolate. Being somewhat smaller in width than other confectionery bars, Twix bars are typically packaged in pairs...

 candy bar

Candy bar

A chocolate bar is a confection in bar form comprising some or all of the following components: cocoa solids, cocoa butter, sugar, milk. The relative presence or absence of these components form the subclasses of dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate. In addition to these main...

s and Smirnoff Vodka. HBO exited the festival business in 2007 and TBS became the primary sponsor.

The festival includes stand-up comedy

Stand-up comedy

Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...

 performances, appearances by the casts of television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 shows, and has a film component called the Film Discovery Program.

In 2008, RooftopComedy.com and the opera house started a new festival based in Aspen, The Aspen RooftopComedy Festival.