Kilkenomics

What Kilkenomics does

Kilkenomics is a privately held cultural event company founded in 2010 in Kilkenny, Ireland. It operates the world's first economics and comedy festival, an annual three-day event that brings together economists, financial analysts, media commentators, and stand-up comedians. The upcoming edition is scheduled for November 6-8, 2026, featuring 70 contributors across 50 events.

The company's core product is the festival itself, with revenue generated through direct-to-consumer ticket sales of the Golden Ticket Weekend Pass via its own e-commerce website. Payment processing is handled through Stripe integration on the company's owned commerce platform. A secondary engagement channel is offered through a newsletter subscription. The business model is entirely B2C, with no disclosed corporate sponsorships, B2B partnerships, or institutional revenue streams.

Kilkenomics operates at a small scale: one festival, one city, one weekend per year. The company's competitive positioning rests on its first-mover status in the economics-comedy crossover niche and 15 years of continuous operation. No technology platform, data assets, or AI capabilities are disclosed. The business is fundamentally a content curation and live event production enterprise with limited scalability beyond its current annual format.

Name

Kilkenomics

Legal name

Kilkenomics

Website

https://kilkenomics.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2010

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Kilkenomics, founded in 2010, operates the world's first economics and comedy festival, held annually in Kilkenny, Ireland. The company sells Golden Ticket Weekend Passes directly to consumers for a three-day event featuring economists, comedians, and journalists.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Live Cultural Festival / Events

NAICS

Convention and Trade Show Organizers (56192)

SIC

Services-Amusement & Recreation Services (7900)

akta.pro primary industry

Comedy Festivals (MPAGACAD)

akta.pro secondary industry

Festival & Event Producers/Organizers (MPAIAFAC)

Keywords

• Economics and comedy festival
• Festival ticket sales
• Live cultural events
• Intellectual entertainment programming
• Comedy festival events

Headquarters

HQ city

Kilkenny

HQ country

Ireland

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Festival Ticket Sales: Primary revenue stream from selling Golden Ticket Weekend Passes for admission to the annual Kilkenomics festival held in Kilkenny, Ireland. The festival features economists, comedians, journalists, and thinkers across multiple events over 3 days.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Kilkenomics organizes the world's first economics and comedy festival, held annually in Kilkenny, Ireland over three days (Nov 6-8, 2026). The company sells Golden Ticket Weekend Passes directly through its e-commerce website, granting admit-one access to approximately 50 events featuring 70 contributors including world-leading economists, financial analysts, media commentators, journalists, and stand-up comedians.

Product overview

Kilkenomics is a single-event festival offering rather than a software product. The company organizes the World's first economics and comedy festival, combining economists, financial analysts, media commentators, and stand-up comedians. The primary product is the Golden Ticket Weekend Pass, which provides admission to approximately 50 events across 3 days featuring 70 contributors in Kilkenny, Ireland. Additional offerings include a newsletter subscription service for festival updates and commentary.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Golden Ticket Weekend Pass Admit-one weekend pass granting access to the Kilkenomics economics and comedy festival held November 6-8, 2026 in Kilkenny, Ireland. The ticket provides entry to approximately 50 festival events featuring 70 contributors including economists, comedians, journalists, and thinkers over 3 days.

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration1 record

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves3 records

Expansion highlights2 records

Broad incumbents

• TED: Global ideas-conference platform monetizing intellectual talks through ticketed flagship events and a massive digital/content library. While not a comedy festival, TED pioneered the monetization model Kilkenomics could extend into via recorded content and licensing.

Direct peers

• Hay Festival: Hay Festival runs annual literature and ideas festivals combining serious intellectual content with cultural programming. Like Kilkenomics, it sells ticketed events featuring prominent public intellectuals in an intimate town setting (Hay-on-Wye), and has expanded into multiple geographies.
• Just For Laughs: Montreal-based comedy festival brand that has produced live comedy events and tours internationally. It shares Kilkenomics' core proposition of monetizing live comedy performances with star talent and has explored international touring/licensing models.
• Latitude Festival: Multi-genre UK festival combining music, comedy, literature, and spoken-word/podcast programming. Its comedy-plus-intellectual content mix mirrors Kilkenomics' positioning and demonstrates the audience appetite for blended live formats.
• Edinburgh Festival Fringe: The world's largest arts and comedy festival, held annually in Edinburgh. It is the most direct competitive analogue for Kilkenomics on the comedy/intellectual side, with ticketed events, prominent comedians, and a multi-week festival format — though at vastly larger scale.
• Festival of Dangerous Ideas: Sydney-based ideas festival pairing intellectuals, journalists, and provocative thinkers with public audiences. Conceptually adjacent to Kilkenomics' economics-comedy crossover, monetizing intellectually provocative live content through ticketed events.
• Melbourne International Comedy Festival: One of the world's largest comedy festivals, running ticketed comedy shows across multiple venues annually. It shares Kilkenomics' ticketed comedy-event model at far larger scale and offers a comparable template for monetizing headline comedians.

Regional players

• Kilkenny Arts Festival: Multi-disciplinary arts festival held in the same city (Kilkenny, Ireland) during the August period. It shares geographic market, venue ecosystem, and audience with Kilkenomics, but competes for the same cultural tourism calendar rather than for direct ticket overlap.

Emerging players

• Royal Society of Economics / Festival of Economics: Economics-focused events and festivals run by academic and policy institutions in the UK. Conceptually adjacent to Kilkenomics' economics-content pillar, though more academic and less comedy-driven — useful as a sourcing channel for economist talent rather than as a direct competitor.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat2 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/kilkenomics

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Kilkenomics