Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival bags top award

The team behind the annual Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival are celebrating receiving Bronze at a prestigious national marketing award last night as well as being nominated for a top European award.

At the annual Field Marketing & Brand Experience, held at the Troxy in London’s East End, Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival, Europe’s longest running comedy festival, were awarded Bronze in the “Client Relationship” category, winning out against powerhouse global brands including The Guardian, 20th Century Fox, Adidas and Vodafone.

The festival has also been nominated for a European Sponsorship Association Excellence Award, alongside a Grayson Perry exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and a Rembrandt exhibition. The winners of the ESA Awards will be announced in February at the Café de Paris in London.

For the organisers of Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival this is their second FM&BE win in two years, having scooped the award for “Best Sponsorship Activation” in 2014, fighting off stiff competition from PlayStation, Lucozade Energy and Strongbow.

This is the first year the festival has entered the ESA Awards, the only awards that recognise excellence within the sponsorship industry across Europe. The festival’s partnerships are created and directed by Sparkle Productions and delivered by a team including Reach Marketing and Arthur Leone PR.

Caroline Taylor MD of Sparkle Productions, said: “This time last year we were celebrating being the first comedy sponsorship to be nominated for and win a marketing industry award, and now we’ve done it again. I’m delighted that the festival continues to be recognised by the FM&BE Awards. To win on the same day as we heard we have been nominated in the ESA Awards is just fantastic news and a huge endorsement of the work done by everyone at Dave and the comedy festival team.”

Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival, which returns 3rd -21st February, will reach its 23rd year in 2016 and the fifth year of its partnership with Dave, UKTV’s comedy stalwart and producers of original commissions such as Crackanory, Ross Noble: Freewheeling, Dave Gorman’s Modern Life is Goodish, Alan Davies As Yet Untitled,  Dara O Briain: School of Hard Sums and Hoff the Record.

Geoff Rowe, founder and Director of the festival said: “For four years our partnership with Dave has been going from strength to strength and I’m delighted to be working alongside them for the 2016 festival. To receive an award from FM&BE for the second year running, and be nominated for the ESA Awards is fantastic recognition.”