For some years producers John Pinder and Mark Ford have been grappling to find a successful method of creating a major comedy event with all the sizzle and pizzazz the Sydney market demands, and at the same time transposing the popular weekend music festival format into comedy.

Both originally from Melbourne, John and Mark were key figures in the development of the hugely successful Melbourne International Comedy Festival in the 1980’s; indeed John Pinder was the founding director of the MICF.

The opening of Cockatoo Island as a public park in May 2007 has presented Sydney with the perfect showcase environment. This unprecedented fusion of an incredible location and top comedy talent is set to ignite Sydney. Before the Island became available, a number of inner-city parklands/retail precincts and well-known public locations had been researched and rejected. They simply lacked a vital element necessary to generate the resonance and big splash, which the producing team know is essential to creating a vibrant new stand-out event worthy of the nation’s biggest, most demanding and most rewarding city.

On a very practical level, the Island could have been purpose built as a comedy festival location which would have required a multitude of indoor venues capable of being converted simply into theatrical spaces. Cockatoo Island has got the lot, with dozens of suitable buildings and the newly grassed open parklands for outdoor shows. All right in the middle of Sydney’s glorious harbour.

John and Mark first joined forces with Nick Murray of Jigsaw Entertainment, a major Sydney independent television production house which has a strong emphasis on comedy. They formed Australian Comedy Festival Pty Ltd in early 2008 to run the new venture and in 2009 were joined by Tasmanian Greg James who is now the Joint Chairman of the Australian Comedy Festival Board with Mark Ford. Greg will help the marketing development of this new venture and the expansion into an annual Festival.

The Island’s operating authority, the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, welcomed the idea of the proposed event, which is a prefect fi t with the Trust’s preferred uses for the Island. Cockatoo Island’s suitability has already been tested, as it has successfully hosted a number of big events in the past two years. And continuing improvements to the Island’s facilities have simply provided an ever more appropriate backdrop for the event.

If there had been set designers working to create a sympathetic comedy atmosphere, the chances are they’d come up with Cockatoo Island.