Now that the New Zealand / Australia Laughs Funny tour 2026 has finished – here’s a summary of how it went.
As background to the tour – getting to New Zealand wasn’t so much of a problem but, by the time of the Australia legs, the Iran-US skirmish had started (February 28th) and getting down under via Dubai was no longer an option. Meaning Jimmy and his crew had a 36-hour route, via the US.
Larger cities involved many of the arena shows being set up “in the round” whereas smaller venues, in remote locations, got double headers. This is where one show was usually around 7.30pm and the second at 9.30pm.
The double headers satisfy the ticket demand but are punishing on the vocal cords. In some of the Heckle Amnesty clips Jimmy was asked why he wasn’t “doing his laugh” and he’d said he had a sore throat. Hardly surprising.
The arenas being in the round meant his crew overseeing the venue being set up with video screens, sound and video boards etc. alongside local experts (see post here) and this all needed dismantling and equipment moving to the next arena. Which is also true of the smaller venues – it just all looks very complicated in that formation!
Our favourite coffee addict was out and about in coffee shops and cafés and lots of business owners (and patrons) proudly posted selfies.
And, while trying to maintain his fitness, he was also snapped at saunas, Lagree classes and so on – plus the ubiquitous Airport selfies.
The populace looked very happy to have him there.
New Zealand
Started on January 7th 2026 in Invercargill and then went to Dunedin, Queenstown, Christchurch, Nelson, Wellington, Palmerston North, New Plymouth, Hawkes Bay, Rotorua, Tauranga, Hamilton and Auckland.
27 shows in all with 7 of the dates being double headers.
New Zealand, tip to toe, is about a 2-hour flight but many of the journeys of Jimmy (and the crew) would have to have been by road.
I’m not sure if it’s the smallest location but Rotorua has around 78,000 residents and 950 of them filled the Sir Howard Morrison Centre. Three times (3 gigs across the 23rd and 24th).
Not a bad “audience to population” ratio and demonstrates that people appreciate a comic that will travel halfway around the world – and then seek out smaller venues. A lot of those people would not have been able to afford to drive / fly to a larger city – so Jimmy went to them.
Australia
Australia was broken up into 2 legs, with some places getting return visits:
- March 1st to 20th
- April 14th to May 10th
The first leg covered Caloundra, Canberra, Bendigo, Geelong, Wollongong, Tamworth, Newcastle, Sydney, Caloundra, Ballarat, Gold Coast.
Second leg was Hobart, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin, Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton, Mackay, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast and Sydney again.
Again, we have the cities (Sydney) getting arena shows and little Hobart in Tasmania (population around 55,000) had 4 shows at the circa 600 capacity Wrest Point Entertainment Centre.
Andrew Maxwell was in Australia and he dropped in to be the opening act in Perth, Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne Arenas (see Instagram post here).
In Perth on April 20th he met up with Drapht backstage (Jimmy Recard) – see here.
In early May he met up with Josh Szeps to do his podcast (here). And, while in Sydney, Chris Williamson posted a video of him and his mates meeting Jimmy at a beach.
And the Gold Coast Convention Centre (capacity 6,000) had Jim Jefferies appear as a surprise opening act.
All of Jimmy’s show posts / photos can be seen under the Woolly tag here.
The numbers
Jimmy was down under for 71 days total (couple of travel days had to be slotted into the itinerary – it’s a big ol’ place) and covered the 6 Australian federated states and 2 mainland territories. Which I think means he went coast to coast in every direction!
Across Aus / NZ this broke down into:
- 89 shows
- 33 towns / cities
- 39 venues
There were 26 days with double headers and, of the 12 arenas, 8 were in the round.
290,000 tickets!
All of that in some immaculate suits!
Sounds exhausting?
Nah, yeah?
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