All the Winners from the DLCF awards PLUS winners of our ticket competition

Awards Panellist Chris Traill and host Pat Monahan get to grips with Best Festival Debut winner Phil Jerrod's mighty beard (picture courtesy of the Leicester Mercury)

Now that the dust has settled and the hangovers have receded from the Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival awards ceremony last night, here are all the winners in full from the glitzy black tie event held at Mercure Leicester (The Grand Hotel) on Granby Street:

Best Venue (over 200 capacity): Curve

Best Venue (under 200 capacity): The Cookie

Best New Show: Romesh Ranganathan

Best Festival Debut: Phil Jerrod

Best Promoter: The Cookie

Contribution to Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival 2015: Nick Wisdom

Make Me Happy Community Project: Leicester City Libraries

Best Poster (voted for by Leicester Mercury readers): Paul Banks of Peril Design

Lifetime Contribution: Lucy Bloomfield of Reach Marketing

Liberty Award: Lynn Ruth Miller

Legend of Comedy (voted for by Leicester Mercury readers): Rik Mayall

Host Pat Monahan, Alexei Sayle, Festival Director Geoff Rowe and Leicester Mercury Editor Kevin Booth (picture courtesy of the Leicester Mercury)

Highlights of the ceremony included: 

- Surprise guest Alexei Sayle turning up to accept the Legend of Comedy award on behalf of Rik Mayall

- Host Pat Monahan hugging his way through the winners and award presenters, and regularly going off script to give each of the presenters their own bizarre, made-up back story

- Double award winner Tinny from The Cookie's regular interjections into proceedings, fuelled by ample amounts of free Prosecco

- Contribution to the Festival winner Nick Wisdom's warm words about his father Norman, a previous winner of the Legend of Comedy award

- Best Festival Debut winner Phil Jerrod accepting Romesh Ranganathan's award as well as his own, and reading out a hilarious message from Romesh, which made constant references to Jerrrod's majestic beard

Congratulations to all the winners and the nominees, and to Big Difference Company for putting on another fine festival and a great awards bash.

Competition Winners

And while we're on the subject of winners, Leicester Comedy Scene's random number generator has chosen the winners of our birthday competition. Anyone who shared our previous post on Facebook or Twitter was automatically entered into the draw for free tickets to two upcoming comedy shows in Leicester, and the winners are:

- Jenny Sloman, who wins a pair of tickets to The Cookie Comedy Club on 4th April featuring Jen Brister, Phil Jerrod and Craig Murray

- Caroline Ryan, who wins a pair of tickets to the launch of Club Smashing at The Cookie on 18th March

Congratulations both, hope you enjoy the shows!