Melbourne International Comedy Festival partner GIAGO awards $15,000 in new grants to support emerging comedy artists

Fifteen Festival artists have been awarded cash grants, helping them to reach new audiences in 2024, thanks to Festival Partner, GIAGO.

Successful recipients Aiden Willcox, Bronwyn Kuss, Dave Woodhead, Lou Wall, Dane Simpson, Game Boys Comedy, Grace Jarvis, Josh Glanc, He Huang, Isaac Haigh, Jay Wymarra, Jennifer Wong, Nick Schuller, Queerly Beloved and Rose Bishop, all received a $1,000 injection to their marketing budgets, along with display advertising across the Festival’s Melbourne Town Hall Info Booth screens.

GIAGO is no ordinary chip! This delicious savoury snack, and comedy brand is revolutionising how the world shares food and laughter. By supporting comedians and the comedy industry, GIAGO’s two-speech-bubbles-joined-together-shaped-snacks’ will contain a great piece of comedy in every bite. The snacks will create a new distribution channel for world class comedy, taking comedians into homes they’d never be invited into!

Understanding the value that marketing and exposure can bring to artists, GIAGO and the Festival partnered together to develop this initiative in 2024; supporting local comics with funding to help give them a leg-up and provide some extra cash to cover marketing and promotional costs. Obviously, our grant winners agreed, we did love some of their responses:

'I am shocked! My very first ever grant! Big thanks to GIAGO and the Festival for the initiative it’s going be so helpful.'

'We’re delighted to work with the team at GIAGO and applaud their commitment to supporting artists to bring to life engaging marketing initiatives. Many individual artists self-fund their Festival seasons, so having a little extra investment to promote shows and build their profiles is enormously helpful in the quest to sell tickets', said Susan Provan, Festival Director.

'In a world crying out for more laughs and more savoury snacks, there can be only one answer; GIAGO!  No other product is both funny and delicious – at the same time!  And what better place to introduce GIAGO than Australia’s home of both food and comedy, Melbourne. GIAGO is proud to be associated with The Melbourne International Comedy Festival and particularly our fabulous 15 Sponsorship Winners', said Chief Comedy Officer, Paul Leadon.

Melbourne International Comedy Festival opens on 27 March running through to 21 April, so get out and catch one or more of these great shows.

ABOUT GIAGO
GIAGO is no ordinary chip! We’re a snack food company and comedy brand. Our delicious, innovative “popped” snacks are shaped like two speech bubbles joined together, complete with joke insert inside, ready to break open a conversation. The snacks deliver a new distribution channel for world class comedy. And, as one of the world’s most environmentally friendly crops, red lentils, these baked-not-fried healthy lentils unleash happy hormones. Good for good times. Good for humans. Good for the planet. GIAGO. WHAT A JOKE. Expect to see GIAGO’s ‘Not so Mature Cheddar’ flavour in store mid-2025. giago.com