Qingdao's old lanes find fresh energy in laughter

This year's festival turned places that once hummed with everyday life into stages packed with laughter. More than 35 comedy formats and over 1,000 shows were staged across the city's historic blocks, primarily in Shinan district.

Stand-up, sketch, theater, mime, magic, musical parades, interactive games, improv comedy, and clowning could be found on the streets and in theaters from Sept 19 to 28.

Meanwhile, at No 97 Zhongshan Road — Qingdao's first Chinese-run cinema, founded in 1931 — classic comedy films were screened throughout the festival.

The festival mainly unfolded across two areas. Around Huangdao Road and Sifang Road, people could wander the lanes and watch the street acts; in the enclosed courtyards near Beijing Road, audiences could sit down and take in a full performance. Day passes cost 9.9 yuan ($1.48) for one area and 16.99 yuan for both, while specially invited productions staged indoors were ticketed separately.

The timing is deliberate. As summer holidays end and Qingdao slips into a brief lull in the tourist season, the festival is meant to inject the city with fresh appeal, Huang added. It seems to have worked: this year's edition drew some 2.15 million visitors to the Liyuan, with daily foot traffic peaking at 270,000.

For theater director Meng Jinghui, who came for a forum during the event, a festival is simply an excuse for people to gather and have fun — comedy, pratfalls, theater, music, all kinds of forms coming together.

What makes this comedy festival special, he said, is that "beyond just entertaining ourselves, something else seems to accompany us". These old buildings, with their pillars and beams, are unassuming, he noted, yet their sense of history draws people closer across time and space.

This year's festival had an international reach, welcoming artists from six countries. Among them were Danish performer Clara Luna Morch Nani, Australian artist Shep Huntly Shepard, and Cuban comic Liubin Lima Manzano, each bringing a distinctly different form of comedy to the courtyards.