In the crowd at a comedy show, three kinds of laughter can usually be heard. First up is the, “oh man, oh god, did they really just say that?” laughter — the kind that comes with a facepalm or a slow head shake, where one’s not sure if the joke was actually funny or just shockingly inappropriate.

Next, there’s the “laughing just to laugh” giggle. That polite little chuckle you give when a joke is still in beta, the crowd is confused, or honestly, it just flat-out bombed. It’s basically the comedy show version of pretending you liked your friend’s burnt casserole so as not to hurt her feelings or discourage her burgeoning cooking career.

Then, there’s the glorious, wild, unbridled laughter —- the “hehehehe” and “whooo hoo hoo” knee-slapping, popcorn-spilling joy that suggests an official fan. This is the kind of laughter that comes from genuinely enjoying a joke, finding it humorous and not feeling bad about it.

At Boulder Comedy Festival, which returns for its fifth year on Wednesday and runs through June 29, guests are guaranteed plenty of that third kind of laughter. Over five days, the festival will feature over 30 comedians performing across four venues, including the Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder, Junkyard Social, 2525 Frontier Ave., Boulder, Louisville Underground, 640 Main St., Louisville, and The End, 525 Courtney Way, Lafayette.

In its fifth year, Zoe Rogers, a stand-up comic, producer and mother of three, founded the event in 2021 with a clear mission: to make comedy lineups feel a little less like a male-dominated weenie-measuring contest and a little more like a warm, motherly hug.

“The festival is not what you typically see in comedy, like an old boys’ club trying to edge people out,” Rogers said. “It’s more like the moms club, where we spend most of our time asking ourselves, ‘How do we take care of everyone and make this work?’”

A decade into her comedy career, Rogers became accustomed to being one of only a few women who were booked as comedians at festivals. She wanted to change that, so she founded Boulder’s local festival that’s become a staple each summer.

This year, she hit a milestone she didn’t see coming.

“I turned to my husband and said, ‘We have 18 women,’” Rogers recalled. “He said, ‘No, the Dairy’s email only lists 14.’ I told him, ‘That’s just one venue. We have 18 total across the whole festival.’”

The realization stopped both her and her husband in their tracks.

“For most of my career, I was one of three women on a lineup. Now, I’m organizing and performing at a festival that has 18 … It feels pretty badass.”

Curating this year’s roster meant reviewing hundreds of submissions between January and April, a process Rogers described as a mix of surprise and delight.

“There were people I hadn’t seen before whose tapes made me go, ‘Who is this?’” she said.

Among the standouts were Neeraj Srinivasan, a sharp-witted Portland comic whose deadpan delivery belies some truly offbeat punchlines; Monica Nevi, a Washington-born performer whose high-energy sets weave personal absurdities with dry observational humor; and Katrina Davis, a rising Los Angeles star known for her disarming stage presence and darkly funny reflections on everything from family to mental health.

Other comedians on the lineup include a mix of Colorado favorites and touring acts from across the country. While each comedian represents a different point of view, they all have one thing in common:

“The comedians we look to book for Boulder Comedy fest include women, people of color and LGBTQAI+. But they aren’t just token slots or fillers,” Rogers said. “They’re smart, funny comics with something to say. The writing is really clever and well thought out. It’s curated, intelligent comedy, not just people onstage saying awful things. I’m very much here for it.”

Rogers has also noticed a shift behind the scenes. When she first pitched the idea of a festival, she often had to convince venues that stand-up didn’t have to mean chaos.

Now, the invites come unsolicited.

“That wasn’t always the case,” Rogers said. “Comedy has this reputation, like there’s some seedy underbelly. When I first started reaching out to venues, a lot of them would say no, thinking comics were going to say offensive things or behave badly.”

Boulder Comedy Festival’s growing reputation has started to ripple across the comedy world.

“Now, people return emails, phone calls, and actually reach out to me instead of the other way around,” she said. “I’ve had comics reach out and say, ‘My friend did this last year and said it was amazing. Can I apply?’

“That didn’t used to happen.”

Still, for all the planning and spreadsheets, some of the festival’s biggest moments come from seeing it all unfold in real time.

“Even on shows I’m not in, I want to be there,” she said. “Watching the audience respond, seeing comics watch each other’s sets, hanging out at the after parties — it just feels like we built something good.”

Rogers will also take the stage this year, drawing from her ever-expanding archive of material on parenting teenagers.

“There’s no street cred as a mom,” she said, joking. “But every now and then, I’ll recognize a comic in a YouTube video they’re watching and say, ‘Oh, I know him.’ That’s the only time I’m cool.”

Returning to the festival is longtime headliner Janae Burris, a standout on the Colorado comedy scene — whose knack for turning a stand-up set into a hilarious, wholly unique and intimate theatrical monologue has made her a fan favorite both at home and on the national circuit. Burris will perform at 7 p.m. June 29 at the Dairy Arts Center and said she’s thrilled to see the festival’s growth over the years, from a mostly local affair to a magnet for talent from across the country.

“I’m local to Colorado, and I love a Colorado audience,” Burris said. “But Boulder crowds are different from Denver. It’s almost like performing for a theater audience. The audiences here are really listening.”

That attentiveness, she said, makes it even more rewarding to return year after year, especially as Rogers continues to build a wide-reaching, robust lineup.

“She’s getting more national acts now,” Burris said, “and when I’ve done the shows in the past, they’ve been full houses. That tells me she’s putting in the work.”

Burris began her career in theater, specifically avant-garde and immersive performance, before shifting into stand-up as a way to claim creative agency and bring her solo act wherever it was welcomed.

Over time, she’s blended the two: infusing her stand-up with the presence and physicality of an actor, while also bringing her comedic chops into immersive stage works with groups like the Off-Center program for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

“You go to school for something like avant-garde theater and wonder, how am I ever going to use this degree?” she said. “Immersive theater is how I’ve ended up using it.”

Her style, like her life, has evolved. These days, Burris is more likely to be talking about mom life than experimental performance theory.

“I just live my life as a mom and go straight onstage and talk about being a mom,” she said.

Burris still makes room for side projects, including teaching stand-up each summer at Athena Project’s comedy camp for girls in Denver.

“I’m always trying to promote it and find more kids who want to get involved, even kids who don’t want to be performers can be empowered through comedy,” Burris said. “Being able to speak in front of people, to feel like you’re a funny person and that you’ll be met with a good response when you share humor: that’s something I want young people to have in their pocket.”

Colorado comic Andrea Marie Sodergren will return to the festival this year in a hosting role, bringing to the stage her signature swirl of sharp wit, bare honesty and the rare ability to make even pandemic divorce sound hilarious.

“I really love hosting. It’s one of my favorite things,” said Sodergren. “I love getting the crowd hyped up and excited for the show. And I love that I get to connect with the performers more. I’m watching their set closely, staying present the whole time. It makes me feel more engaged.”

For Sodergren, the festival’s inclusivity is part of what keeps her coming back.

“I really appreciate everything Zoe (Rogers) does to curate the lineup,” she said. “Once I connect with these people, we end up following each other and reconnecting out in the world. That kind of community is special.”

As someone who produces and headlines her own touring show, Moms Unhinged, Boulder Comedy Festival is a chance to catch up with old friends, discover new voices and be part of something that feels genuinely fulfilling.

“It’s amazing how underrepresented certain voices have been for so long,” Sodergren said. “When we have different perspectives up there, the audience gets to learn about people’s experiences, what it might be like to be a minority, or to have a different gender identity, or whatever other issues they might be dealing with. People get to hear those experiences in a different way.”

Sodergren’s material

doesn’t shy away from heavy topics. She writes jokes that draw from her life — everything from parenting, caring for an aging parent and getting a divorce smack in the middle of the pandemic.

“I try to pull from whatever’s going on in my life,” she said.

Processing those topics through comedy, she added, has been a way of working through them.

“It definitely helps me to find the humor,” Sodergren said. “But it has to be processed trauma, not raw. You have to be on the other side of it enough to look at it and ask, ‘OK, what’s funny about this?’”

She sees comedy as a shared space, one where vulnerability becomes connection.

“We’re all going through hard things,” she said. “The point is to find the light together.”

Other comedians performing at Boulder Comedy Festival 2025 include: Aditya Shankar, Al Jackson, Andreas Beceril, Arman Shah, Babs Gray, Cara Leoni, John Novosad, Linus Leas, Cassie Willson, Charlie James, Chip Nicholson, Dana Teller, Elliot Weber, Eric Hook, Greg Cherry, Jene Suplee, Jonah Nigh, Josh Mazek, Kari Stern, Kimberly Koester, Leah Althoff, Mary Huth, Miriam Moreno, Pam Moore, Peter Liu, Ricky Ramos, Ryan Bonnell, Sam Shay, Stephanie McHugh, Stephanie Sprenger, and Wes Williams.

Tickets for Boulder Comedy Festival range in price, depending on the venue and show, with most general admission tickets falling between $20 and $30. Seats are limited, especially for the new brunch performances, so early booking is encouraged.

A full schedule and ticket links can be found at the festival’s official pages, including Junkyard Social, The Dairy Arts Center, Dog House Music, and Louisville Underground, as well as at Boulder Comedy Festival’s website at bouldercomedyfestival.com.