“A Pub Crawl With A Punch Line”: Sydney Comedy Festival Brings A Queer Comedy Crawl To Oxford Street

The Sydney Comedy Festival is bringing back its Comedy Crawl series in 2026, including a dedicated queer edition taking place across Oxford Street venues in Darlinghurst next month.

The Queer Comedy Crawl will run on May 6 as part of the festival’s wider Comedy Crawl program, which also includes events in The Rocks, Manly, Rozelle and Sydney’s YCK Laneways.

“It’s a pub crawl with a punch line,” explains festival producer Zelda Winestock. “We station a comedian at each venue. And then each group of audience members has a comedian guide who leads them between the four venues and at each one they get a drink and a comedy show. It was a sell-out success last year, so we decided to do it heaps more times this year.”

The Queer Comedy Crawl will feature “four comedy sets by four brilliant comedians at four iconic queer venues in the Rainbow Precinct, all included in one ticket”. The event will take audiences through venues on Oxford Street, described by organisers as “the queer heart of Sydney”, including the Burdekin and a space at Qtopia.

Winestock says that part of the project for this year’s Comedy Festival was to bring the festival to areas of Sydney that hadn’t seen much activity in previous years – which included Oxford Street.

“It’s so cool to be able to do shows at some of these venues, which are such a huge part of the culture of Oxford Street, and by having performers who’ve worked the street and know the place so well, we’re helping to really give people a bit an insight into the culture and history of Oxford Street at the same time.”

Attendees of the crawl will be guided by a drag performer while moving between venues including nightclubs, cabaret bars and a queer history museum. The event is scheduled across multiple staggered start times from 5:30pm. Queens guiding the crawl include Minnie Cooper, Sexy Galexy, Wonder Mama, and Kevin in the City.

“One thing I’m most excited for is to see which of the drag queens go for the heels despite the walking element, and which ones are in the comfortable sneakers,” shares Zelda Winestock.

The queens will chaperone the crawl around Oxford Street, and lead the crowd to comedy shows by Sydney comedians Jake Howie, Elliot McLaren, John Glover and Guneet Kaur.

The broader Comedy Crawl series has become a recurring part of the Sydney Comedy Festival program, with each crawl taking audiences through four venues and comedy sets in a single evening or afternoon. Winestock warns that all Comedy Crawl events sold out quickly in 2025, and two of the four Queer Comedy Crawl sessions are already booked.

The Queer Comedy Crawl is listed as an 18+ event, with tickets priced at $55 through the Sydney Comedy Festival website.