Here’s what you need to know about Greeley’s first two-night comedy festival

 By Dan England

Rudy Garcia has tried to get stand-up comedy going in Greeley. This weekend will be a good test to see if his efforts are working. 

Garcia brings a two-night comedy festival, the Cow Town Comedy Festival, to the Moxi and Stella’s for Friday and Saturday nights. The event features more than 40 comedians, and you can buy a pass to see them all, if you can’t get enough comedy in your life. You can also purchase tickets to individual showcases. 

Garcia works as a cook at Luna’s Tacos and Tequila — the third trifecta in the downtown Greeley love triangle with the Moxi and Stella’s — and does his comedy show at night. He said Greeley hasn’t embraced stand-up comedy as much as he’d like, despite efforts by places such as Syntax in downtown Greeley as well as the Moxi to feature it. He’s worked as a comedian in Greeley for four years and acknowledged others such as Tobias Livingston who have put together shows for Greeley. This is Greeley’s first comedy festival. 

“We do have funny people in these shows,” Garcia said. “That’s been my main challenge is to let people know we are doing the stand-up thing and it’s a good time.” 

The showcases will feature a host, an opener, a secondary act and a headliner and should run 90 minutes each, Garcia said. He will have showcases on Friday in both the Moxi and Stella’s (which is downstairs from the Moxi) and more Saturday with the same setup. 

Fort Collins for years has supported stand-up and has a monster comedy festival, Jokechella, that features hundreds of comedians (Garcia has taken part in that one, and this year’s event will be July 3) in addition to The Comedy Fort, a place devoted to comedy, Garcia said. That may be a bit much to ask for Greeley, but he wants to see how far it can go here with Cow Town. 

“We are baby stepping into it,” Garcia said. 

Some of the big headliners are Adam Cayton-Holland, who will tour soon with his one-man show and founded the High Plains Comedy Festival as well as Mitch Jones, Jonny Bratsveen, Hannah Jones, Christie Buchele and Joel Vernon. 

“You may not recognize all the names, but they are all big in Colorado,” Garcia said, “and once you hear them perform, you will.” 

Garcia was encouraged by being able to book two days of comedy. He said he had just hoped to book enough for Friday, but many more comics responded with positives than he thought. He said taking part in lots of open-mic nights for comics in Denver and Fort Collins helped him get to know a lot of them. 

“There are so many good ones, and they are really, really funny,” he said.

What to know before you go

The Cow Town Comedy Festival starts at 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday and will take place at the Moxi Theater, 802 8th St. in downtown Greeley as well as Stella’s downstairs from the Moxi. Go to moxitheater.com for tickets.