A couple weeks ago, comedian Jay Larson, of Walleye Pictures & Sound, went to Miami Florida to perform in the Comedy Central’s South Beach Comedy Festival with some amazingly funny comedians. This is his report.

I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in Comedy Central’s South Beach Comedy Festival and I had a blast!!! I hopped on a plane Thursday morning in Los Angeles and after 6 hours of sleep arrived in Miami to 78 degree weather and a city ready to laugh! This year there were 4 venues for the festival, all within walking distance. After hopping a shuttle with my girl Natasha Leggero I checked in to my hotel and took a nap, “Don’t judge me, I had a long weekend ahead!”

After I woke up clear headed and refreshed I headed out to dinner with some of the other comedians. My show wasn’t until 9:00 that night but Mike Birbiglia was playing at 8:00 at the Lincoln Theater, a beautiful theater right in the heart of the festival. I popped into the balcony with my all access pass and watched Mike do his thing. If you haven’t seen or heard him, pick up an album, you’ll be hooked. I couldn’t stay long because I had a show at The Lincoln Road stage. This is an out door stage in the center of Lincoln road. Lincoln road is full of shops, restaurants and cool peeps! The show consisted of Owen Benjamin (House Bunny, CCP), Natasha Leggero (Chelsea Lately), Joe Mande (Live at Gotham), Pete Holmes (Doctor, Hotel), and Me (Late Late Show) Each show opened with a 10 minute video of some ATOM.COM highlights and then featured US! Needless to say the show was dope. Here are some pics.

From left to right, Natasha playing scared, Owen dealing with the heat and bringing it, and of course our beloved stage!

After show one on Thursday it was off to Lucky Strike for a Bacardi sponsored night of bowling, where I dominated. Gabriel Iglesias showed up after his show and bowled a couple while Birbiglia and others settled in to the VIP lounge and relaxed in the cool AC. Day 1 done, Boom!

Every day there were plenty of activities. After grabbing a bite with Joe and Pete we changed and headed over to Lincoln road for some interviews. We rapped for a bit with Michelle Buteau. She is dope, she did Premium Blend a while back and is out there crushing all the time. After that I took a quick dip in the pool, grabbed some dinner and headed to dinner. We decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner at Nobu, no big deal. I mean, I’m not bragging but we did see Will Smith lounging. And no I didn’t take a pic! Luckily that dinner was on the festival and I bounced early to see my good friend Tom Segura (Live at Gotham) open for Joe Rogan at The Lincoln theater. Tom was dope as always and I got the first 15 minutes of Rogan’s set. Of course he rocked. I had never met him till before the show and I gotta say, “That guy is a class act!” And he’s as funny as he is classy! Got my laugh on and then hit our show at 9:00.

Friday’s show was great. We mix up the order every night and Michelle stopped in to do a set which crushed! After we said some hellos to the audience we headed over to the roof deck at the Gansevoort for a Festival party sponsored by Grey Goose! I grabbed a cocktail, chatted with Tom and Rogan and then took my turn doing 1 on 1 interviews with Kevin Hart (CCP, Fools Gold, and everything else) They had Kevin set up in a Cabana doing interstitials for Comedy Central. Kevin had shows all weekend which he totally sold out and crushed and then doubled up with interviews. And what a sweetheart that guy is! I literally tried to hug him, he was so nice. The interview was 3 minutes and then I got right back to mingling. John Oliver was at the party with the rest of his Daily Show friends and I met up briefly with Rob Riggle (Daily Show) who isn’t just funny, he’s a softy. He looks like he could kick your ass but he’s just a big Teddy bear. I may have had one too many Grey Gooses because I left at 3 AM and had two slices of pizza by myself, so sad.

From left to right, Joe, me and Pete taking in Miami. Joe catching up on reading before his interview. Michelle and me, and Kevin Hart and Me. Good times.

Finally Saturday was here and after sleeping in the 5 of us Lincoln Road Comics were off to brunch at The Standard for a round table discussion that was taped for Comcast. We sat round eating high priced food and rapped about comedy and the festival. As always everyone was funny and we made fun of each other. We had a blast. By this point in the weekend we were all kind of spent and we all went our own ways for the day and decided to meet up to watch Brian Regan at 7:00. If you don’t know Brian Regan, then you don’t know comedy. GO CHECK HIM OUT!!! We arrived back stage at The Fillmore, a 2400 seat theater right down the street from Lincoln stage. Kevin Hart was there to peep the show, we all said “What up?” and hit the show. Brian works completely clean and absolutely crushed for an hour straight. Brian is from Miami and has never performed there so it was a pretty special night. We left the show on a high and headed over to our show at Lincoln Road. It had rained all day but the crowd was still there ready to roll and so were we.

The show started at 9:00. It was our last show, we had a bottle of Grey Goose back stage, which Pete may or may not have taken from the night before and Dan levy stopped by to hop on the show. Dan (CCP, Atom.com, and a bunch of other stuff) was opening for Aziz Ansari (Parks and Rec, Human Giant, new Album) For the record, the vodka was for after the show. Dan is a great comic and he had time in between his shows with Aziz and did a great job, they loved him. I had the pleasure of hosting the last show. So while we were closing down our part of the festival, Brian Reagan was on stage somewhere, Aziz was somewhere else and John Oliver and The Daily show crew was somewhere else!!! This festival is easily the best fest in the US. I have been to Montreal, Vancouver and Boston for all those festivals. But nothing compares to this party! Get off your butt and get to next years!!!

Thanks Jay! Make sure to check out all of Jay’s films here and here!