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The first Leicester Comedy Festival was held in February 1994.

The Comedy Festival was the brainchild of Geoff Rowe and his friend Pat Viner when they were students at De Montfort University.

It's now the longest running comedy festival in the UK and an established date in the Leicester calendar.

Listen: Interview with Geoff Rowe

大象传媒 Leicester's Ben Jackson spoke to the Director of Leicester Comedy Festival, Geoff Rowe, and delves into the archives to see how 大象传媒 Leicester has covered the last fifteen festivals...

From unknown to stardom

One of the performances of the first festival was held at the university's Scraptoft Campus and ticket's were 拢2.50.

Hill performed at the first festival

The comedian had very little fame or fortune at the time, and his opening act was completely unknown - it was Harry Hill supported by Matt Lucas.

But despite these associations with household names, Geoff says the festival has retained it's connection to the community:

"One of the things that I am really pleased about with the festival is that it isn't just about big names, it's also about local people getting involved and performing and enjoying themselves really.

"That's everybody from community groups and individuals to performers."

"Beg, borrow or steal"

Fifteen years after those first gigs, Geoff says he's thrilled the comedy festival is still going strong.

"It's always been a bit 'beg, borrow or steal', the festival, and people just join in and help us out because they think it's a really positive thing, locally and nationally people do that.

"I think if there's one thing for the future it'd be to develop that and to keep that so that we don't just become this big corporate commercial thing, we actually have our roots in people who really like the festival."