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Comedy to cure cancer show will highlight local comics, plus award winner

All proceeds from this comedic gathering go to the North Bay Relay for Life Canadian Cancer Society fundraiser at CFB North Bay June 22
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2018 Relay for Life Honourary Cancer Survivor Doug Bies, who is also the Honourary Headliner for the North Bay Comedy for Cancer Cure event June 14 at the Davedi Club. Supplied.

Tickets for the North Bay Comedy to Cure Cancer event go on sale Tuesday morning ahead of announcing the headliner for the fundraising event at the Davedi Club June 14.

All proceeds from this comedic gathering go to the North Bay Relay for Life Canadian Cancer Society fundraiser at CFB North Bay June 22. Organizers are in discussions with an award-winning comic and hope to finalize details later this week. She would be the featured act following a string of local comedians involved with Stand Up Comedy North Bay, including host Andre Raymond, honourary headliner Doug Bies, lead act Eric Bowman and rookie Dave Dale.

Tickets are $20 per person in advance and available beginning Tuesday morning. Price increases to $25 at the door.

Richard Catahan, of North Bay, is the title sponsor after booking the first reserved table with a $500 donation directly to the CCS. The goal of the event is to raise at least $3,000 after expenses to assist the fight to cure this terrible disease.

Secondary VIP table reservation sponsorships are available for a separate $100 donation to CCS North Bay Relay for Life (after the purchase of 10 tickets at $20 each). A hospitality sponsorship to accommodate the event’s headliner is also being sought.

You can catch a peek at all four of the local acts, as well as other talents when they perform at the open mic at the Fox and Fiddle Tuesday night 8:30 to 10:30 p.m.

Bies has been doing stand-up for five years but he’s also the 2018 North Bay Relay for Life Honourary Cancer Survivor. A public servant and local football referee during the day, he’s performed in Toronto and Barrie and is currently exploring an acting career after gaining experience as an extra for various productions done in North Bay recently.

Raymond has opened for Canadian headliners including Darren Frost, Kathleen McGee and K. Trever Wilson at the North Bay Comedy Festival. He started in Sudbury in 2013 and won the LOL Festival’s Crown of Comedy Competition a year later. Last year, he toured Northern Ontario as part of the Cold Dark North Show.

Bowman brought the local stand-up scene to life this past year by organizing monthly open-mic events and coordinating comedy shows at the Fox and Fiddle and The Raven and Republic. A North Bay high school, college and university athlete, Bowman decided he’d prefer to sweat under the bright lights of fame than do burpees the rest of his life.

Dale is the greenest talent in the pool with just a few open mic appearances and two small dinner shows under his belt. But after three decades of small-town journalism, there’s literally no end to the tales he can tell. But he promises, like only a politician would, to only make fun of the local politicians and authority figures who don’t show up.

Before the comedy show starts at 8 p.m., Verdon Vaillancourt, the 2017 Relay for Life Honourary Cancer Survivor, will entertain beginning after the doors open at 7 p.m.

The Davedi Club will be hosting a cash bar for this event with the last call at 11 p.m.

There are two other local comedy events coming up. Raymond is in the lineup for a show at The Raven and Republic, Saturday, April 28, part of the Irritable and Confused tour. And Bowman has organized another Comedy at the Raven and Republic event with the best local comedians featured Thursday, May 10.

Contact Dale at (705) 498-2050 or Bies at (705) 303-3315 for North Bay Comedy for Cancer Cure ticket sales and sponsorship inquiries. Beginning Tuesday morning, tickets can also be purchased at the Davedi Club and Canadian Cancer Society North Bay office at 176 Lakeshore Dr. They are located at the Coworking176.Space facility in the refurbished former Tweedsmuir Elementary School near the Gertrude Street intersection.