With just one ticket, comedy fans choose from more than 200 amazing performances by local and international artists appearing in 18 great venues across Cockatoo Island, as well as enjoy a drink in atmospheric bars, great food, and quirky market stalls.

The funny people include British comedy legends The Goodies and Alexei Sayle, Sydney's top stars Merrick and Rosso and Akmal, dancer of the moment Fiona O'Loughlin, and 193 other acts and shows for a weekend of spectacular silliness.

World's Funniest Island will transform the former colonial prison and naval dockyard, utilising the unique buildings, parklands, tunnels, a spectacular big top and even a bomb shelter to deliver a laughquake of entertainment from mid-morning until midnight.

The festival will pack in everything from top comics, sketch shows, circus, cabaret and burlesque, to music comedy, the best Australian student revues and even crazy art classes.

Like the big music festivals, performers will be announced progressively. The local list includes Heath Franklin's Chopper, Tripod, Jimeoin, Anthony Ackroyd, Austen Tayshus, Scared Weird Little Guys, Wendy Harmer, Sleek Geeks (Adam Spencer and Dr Karl) and Claire Hooper.

Fresh from selling out London's Hammersmith Apollo, US Muslim comics Allah Made Me Funny (one African-American, one Indo-American and one Palestinian-American) will premiere on the island.

And, in a world exclusive, Pakistan's only English-speaking stand-up comic Sami Shah will make his first ever international appearance.

Specially cooked for Cockatoo Island, Bitchin' Kitchen matches chefs and comics in a hilarious cook off. Erotic Fan Fiction offers funny filth in literary form, while the world's only burlesque drawing class, Dr Sketchy's Anti Art Class, offers a relaxed hour of adults-only loopy life drawing. And there's so much more!