After a successful debut in 2025, Variety Pack is back—and bigger, bolder, and more delightfully unhinged than ever.
Philadelphia’s festival celebrating the chaotic, theatrical, and unclassifiable corners of alt-comedy returns this month with two full weekends of shows, 20 acts, and a lineup that promises to pique all curiosities. What began as a one-off experiment has now grown into its own producing entity, giving the city’s strangest comedic voices a permanent stage, and it all starts on Jan. 22.
“The first Variety Pack was an experiment to see if anybody even wanted something like this. After a resounding 'YES!' from artists and audiences alike, we’re going as big as we possibly can with Vol. 2,” says Variety Pack co-producer, Chaz T. Martin.
“We’ve doubled the number of shows, included children’s programming, and added a couple of workshops to back up our philosophy that comedy can and should be for everybody. My hope is that over time, Variety Pack becomes as beloved by Philadelphians as Gritty or parking in the middle of Broad Street. Go Birds.”
All shows during the festival will be performed at the Louis Bluver Theatre at The Drake (302 S Hicks St.) What locals can expect is a line-up of family-friendly improvised musicals, energetic solo shows, unique takes on pop culture, stagings of late-night cartoons and The Futuremores, which is officially described as a “‘fake awards show for real shows that haven’t happened yet.”
As a note, daytime / early afternoon shows will generally be family-friendly or workshop content, evening shows may be suitable for teens (at parent discretion), and late-night shows will delve into more adult content. A full schedule of times and descriptions is available online.
On top of giving a spotlight to distinctive comedy performances, Variety Pack is also meant to be accessible. As a release notes, the festival offers Pay It Forward (PIF) tickets; Variety Pack’s version of NOTAFLOF (No One Turned Away For Lack of Funds). When audiences purchase a Pay It Forward ticket, it goes into a shared pool of free tickets that are made available to anyone who needs one.
For those who can't make it out for opening weekend (Jan. 22 to 24), Variety Pack will continue on next weekend to close out the month (Jan. 29 to 31.) Tickets are $12 in advance or $15 at the door (there are also $5 kids' tickets for kids' shows). All tickets are available via tickettailor.com
