Grand Valley State University’s Spotlight Productions will host the semifinals of the Last Laker Standing comedy competition on Saturday, Feb. 3. The show will begin at 8 p.m. in the  Kirkhof Center Pere Marquette Room.

The nature of the campus-wide stand-up competition allowed for any GVSU student to audition. Auditions were held mid-January, and Spotlight Productions chose the participants who would move to the semifinals.

Spotlight Productions chooses 10 people to move to the semifinals, and the top five winners then move to the finals round. This year’s competition will include new faces and new humor. Students who have never participated in a comedy competition will show off their stand-up chops in the semifinals in hopes of moving forward to the next round. 

During the semifinals, competitors will showcase a five-to-seven-minute skit. The audience and the judges will then choose who will go further in the competition. The finals round consists of 10- minute skits. 

Simon Carlson, second-place winner of last year’s Last Laker Standing, will be hosting this year’s competition. This is Carlson’s first time hosting this competition, but he said he plans to warm the crowd up at the beginning of the show with a five-to-10-minute comedy act, and he intends to keep the crowd excited and upbeat during the show. 

“We can prove the show with a comedian host and warm the crowd up a bit,” Carlson said. “It’s fun to perform, but it’s important to hype the crowd up and keep the show going at a nice pace.”

Brandon Cooley, third-place winner from last year, is excited to compete in this year’s Last Laker Standing. Cooley plans to bring fresh material to the stage to try to impress the audience and judges.

“The show, in general, is explicit,” Cooley said. “You could say some of it is rated R depending on the style of the performer. There is a lot of different humor from everyone in the club.”

Cooley said the audience will get to experience different styles of comedy firsthand, from one-liners to observational humor to story-based humor. 

Five finalists will move to the next round where they can update their skits with new material. A professional comedian will host the finals, and the winner of the competition will open for the upcoming year’s LaughFest in Grand Rapids. 

The host for this year’s finals is Jordan Rock, comedian Chris Rock’s brother. Spotlight Productions comedy chair, Aurora Reese, is excited for Rock to come to GVSU and host the show.

“I think it’s really cool we have Chris Rock’s brother hosting our finals this year,” Reese said. “I was super excited to hear he would host.” 

Spotlight Productions encourages all GVSU students to attend the event. Reese said the turnout is usually decent, and she hopes people can attend the event to support the competitors. 

Admission is free to the public. For more information on the event, contact Spotlight Productions at [email protected].