Comedy Central To Host A Twitter-Only Comedy Festival Next Week

Next week, Comedy Central is launching a unique 5-day comedy festival that brings comedians directly to their audience. Well, directly to their audience’s Twitter stream. Next week, a Twitter-only festival will be released that features some of comedy’s elite including Mel Brooks, Amy Schumer and Carl Reiner. The event starts next Monday and will use the  hashtag #ComedyFest.

The event will leverage mixed media and tweets, thanks to the collaboration between Viacom and Twitter. #ComedyFest will feature live-streaming video, snippets from comics on stage and the sharing of 6 second Vines. For Vine, one of Twitter’s newest acquisitions, a specific segment, “Vine Dining,” will be hosted by Steve Agee on Tuesday. This segment will feature 6-second videos from other celebrities, TV shows and comedians.

Doug Herzog, president of Viacom Entertainment Group, told The New York Times “I don’t think anybody is moving forward in the TV business or the brand business without finding ways to develop a true dialogue with consumers.” The execution and feedback from this event will be interesting to see, especially seeing that there is reportedly a pending Twitter/Viacom partnership in the works.

While intriguing, the format also seems rather confusing. The Tweets, video snippets and Vines mesh well with Twitter, but the event starts with a live stream featuring Mel Brooks, Judd Apatow and Carl Reiner in LA on Monday. Comedy Central will also be releasing an app titled CC: Stand Up that will feature a recommendation engine to display stand-up bits to users.

For more information on the event, see the New York Times.