Christopher BarrettNamed Live Event of the Yeat (Europe) at the Access All Areas Awards, Altitude Festival has been taking comedians to new heights for the best part of two decades. We caught up with the festival’s CEO Brett Vincent to discuss its mounting success.
Billed as ‘the world’s no.1 alpine comedy festival’, Altitude Festival was created by its comedian founders Marcus Brigstocke and Andrew Maxwell to provide a joyous combination of mountain misadventures, skiing, and live comedy in the Alps.
Since its inception in 2007, Altitude has carved out a unique niche combining comedy with Alpine activities that go far beyond merely skiing and snowboarding. The distractions on offer range from ice climbing, tobogganing and paragliding to schnapps-testing, fondue devouring, in-spa treatments and rooftop pool parties.
Set to return to the picturesque resort of Mayrhofen from 30 March to 3 April next year, Altitude’s spectacular setting, in Austria’s Zillertal Valley between the striking Penken and Ahorn mountains, is clearly a major draw but the comedic talent on offer is no less impressive. Over the years the event has gained a history of attracting some of the biggest names in the business, from Eddie Izzard and John Bishop to Jimmy Carr and Bill Bailey.
Comedy manager, agent and promoter Brett Vincent says comedians have long seen Altitude Festival as a welcome opportunity to escape the pressures of touring, meet up with friends and comedy compatriots, and take a refreshingly different approach to performing. Among those to take to the slopes for the 2026 festival are Al Murray, Paul Smith, Jason Byrne, Felicity Ward, Justin Moorhouse, Deirdre O’Kane and of course Andrew Maxwell and Marcus Brigstocke.
Altitude Festival was previously staged in Méribel in the French Alps, but unfortunate incidents involving circus tents and huge amounts of snowfall led to its collapse. Why did you get involved, and move it to Mayrhofen?
The costs of that last festival in Méribel just took Marcus and Andrew out of it. As much as I was always meant to go over there to Méribel and help them out to try and get it off the ground there and sell more tickets, I was always busy doing Edinburgh Festival back then.
I’ve known Andrew and Marcus since the late 1990s, and when it all went down at Méribel, I wanted to try and get the festival back up and running. I knew the guys that ran Snowbombing, and wanted to take that Snowbombing model and make it work with comedy. Gareth Cooper, who runs Snowbombing, was really kind about it, and let us do some comedy gigs at his event. While I was there, I checked out all the venues in town.
Luckily there was a local guy called Erich Roscher from Sport & Spa Hotel Strass who really loved the idea and offered the use of the hotel at discounted rates. He gave us two of his venues, and we used his hotel. That really got us integrated into the town and helped us out, and since then he has been a vital support alongside the Tourist Board.
Our first year there, we had a great bill with Jimmy Carr, Frankie Boyle, Tim Minchin, Kevin Bridges and even Michael Winslow from Police Academy. The budgets we had those days for talent were incredible, but so were the losses. We took some big hits, and in 2017 we had to have a year off because we were no longer seeing eye to eye with the Tourist Board. I ended up buying the festival for £1 due to money owed to me, and in 2018 decided I would back it all myself and once again resurrect it.
Podcast recording with Andrew Maxwell and Alan Allen aka Mike Keat during the Altitude Comedy Festival 2025. (image – Anthony Upton)
Are there any plans to build on the hugely positive reviews, media coverage, and growing number of industry awards Altitude has received by expanding the event?
We’ve always had the idea of turning Altitude into an international comedy conference, and we’re still exploring that, provided we can get enough promoters and industry interest. Next year, we’re aiming to bring in around 400 new Irish attendees and, hopefully, a similar number from the Netherlands the year after. The plan is for them to bring their own comedians, run dedicated shows, and then join us for the shared English-speaking galas. There are also long-term plans to grow the festival from one week to two, with a capacity of around 2,500 people, though that’s unlikely to happen before 2028 at the earliest. We’ve even discussed the idea of an Australian Altitude and a Canadian edition, but let’s walk before we run.
Is skiing compulsory at Altitude and do skiers make up the majority of the event’s attendees?
Back in 2016 it used to be 95% skiers at the festival but over the last few years it’s down to around 60%. Mayrhofen is very much a wellness centre, so we get a load of people who want to get pampered for a week; they’ll go to the spas and saunas and get massages or sit on the rooftops and look at the amazing mountain views while drinking bubbles.
We are getting more and more people who are primarily comedy fans. I used to target all of my promotion at skiing people, but it wasn’t until lockdown that I learned that people who ski will often just ski where they learned. When we started focusing our marketing on the comedy crowd, knowing that we always put on great comedy shows, we started getting more and more people coming to Altitude Festival. It is getting to that point now where we have a really good comedy fan base, and that’s why our VIP tickets sell out so quickly. The VIPs not only get free drinks, best seats and merch, they also get a chance to do a ‘meet and greet’ with the comedians and get to race them..
“The VIPs not only get a chance to meet the comedians, they also get to race them.”
Race them?
Yes. It’s called the Clown Hill Race. All the VIPs race the comedians and whoever’s first at the bottom gets a prize, normally a cowbell. It’s just bonkers and great to watch.
You’ve overcome a fair few challenges staging Altitude Festival, what drives you to keep at it?
I’ve seen the mental health in a lot of comedians fail because of how lonely and how depressing it can be on the road. Altitude is like Edinburgh Festival but for the skiers, snowboarders and adventure types. It’s an opportunity for comedians to go see a load of their mates and have a great time. It has helped my business in the UK, getting to know some of the bigger comedians who then go on to do the other things I work on throughout the year. Originally, it was like a loss leader for my other business but now I have kids. When I see their faces every time they get out on to the mountain it makes me want to keep the event going for them, as well as my crew and regular audiences who absolutely love it.
Costs have risen significantly over the past five years. Ski passes have gone up 47%, hotels have gone up 43% and flight prices have risen by 35%; so every year it gets more and more expensive to do this. It has cost me a lot of money, particularly during the pandemic. We were scheduled to run a week after Boris Johnson first put the UK into lockdown, so we lost a tonne of money there on deposits and flights. Because the comedians were completely out of work, we gave them 50% of their fees, and we also lost deposits for hotels, venues and transfers. We’re just trying to get that back now, but next year, we have got such an amazing lineup, with five stonking headliners, who collectively have millions of followers on social media, so fingers crossed. We are then going to build on that for 2027, which is the event’s 20th anniversary, so we’re planning something very special.
This article is included in the latest edition of Access All Areas magazine.