Comedy is no longer an underdog in Austin. It’s now home to upwards of three national festivals without including SXSW, our theater system is vast, our performers are notorious, and the critical buzz seems to escalate every day. The city may not rank with the metropolises like New York or Los Angeles, but we’re certainly not too far down the totem pole.

Most people would be happy with these distinctions, but for people like Michael Jastroch, the publicist for Out of Bounds Comedy Festival, it isn’t enough.

“We really want to show the rest of the country what’s happening here in Austin,” said Jastroch. “Right now we’re more of a training ground on how to become to be a really great performer, but I think there’s a huge explosion of attention coming.”

Jastroch came to Out of Bounds as a performer, but three years ago after a vacancy surfaced, he took a role as an organizer. He speaks directly and passionately about Austin comedy, staunchly enthusiastic about the scene he helped start.

When asked where he wanted to see Out of Bounds go in the future, the first things out of his mouth was, “a film premier would be nice.” He’s still working on a lot of dreams, including the festival.

But he’s certainly seen Out of Bounds explode. Beginning in 2002 as a way to unite Texas comedy and get some national attention, the pre-Labor Day event now spans a solid 7 days, this year expecting 500 performers in 80 shows across a wide variety of venues.

While these venues usually spend their weeks competing with each other, Coldtowne, Velveeta, The Hideout and The State all join forces to welcome a laundry list, ranging from a heavy dose of local acts to national troupes, and even a couple international performers. The week’s headliner? San Francisco’s Greg Proops, best known as a mainstay on the legendary “Whose Line is it Anyway.” Not bad for something that started off so modest.

“I think honestly we benefit from not having a looming presence like Hollywood hanging over the city,” said Jastroch. “People out here are less involved in the scene as a commodity; they’re doing it for the art, for the love of performing, not because they hope it might lead to something lucrative. Nobody is going to get world-famous in Austin, and we’re alright with that.”

That attitude might sound more like a settlement than an M.O., but it certainly defines the fertility of the collective. Most mid-sized towns would be lucky to have a single theater, much less a comprehensive network. The way Jastroch describes it, the members of the scene share true friendships on personal and creative levels.

“I’ve seen people who didn’t know each other a year ago become best friends and writing partners,” said Jastroch. “It’s too scatter shot in other cities. Here we all know each other, coach each other, direct each other, go to the same parties. Its organic.”

A community like this seems rare in an industry increasingly defined by viral-videos and internet self-promotion. But within this community, there’s great diversity.

“We’ve got a very specific improv identity,” added Jastroch. “Most cities with a theater system are very segregated; they don’t like to mix with each other, or its just one style of improv. We’re the only city in the country that houses all different strains from short-form improv, sketch, long-form, character-based improv, narrative improv. That just doesn’t happen in most cities, but here everything is very open. We like to encourage our performers to take classes from everyone they can find, and broaden their style.”

It’s not to say there isn’t competition—that’s just part of the industry—but the unison and dedication within Austin’s repertoire adds up to a very healthy environment.

People are definitely taking notice. Performance comedy isn’t exactly known for being much more than a niche genre, but within that niche Austin has drawn a lot of one-off bookings, from Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) to Second City Network.

“The acts that come through here are blown away by just how our audiences understand what they’re doing, they just ‘get it,’” said Jastroch. It’s something that requires familiarity, and some general enthusiasm for something a little offbeat.

Of course there is a higher concentration of this stuff than there used to be; we’re talking Hell Yes Fest, Wafflefest, and the Austin Sketch Festival all operating around the same time. There aren’t too many cities you can think of with that many yearly events, and redundancy becomes an obvious issue. They all offer their own hooks, the specificness of Sketch Fest, or even free waffles at Wafflefest, but there’s bound to be a little head-butting.

Jastroch seems to acknowledge all of this, but doesn’t consider it a huge issue.

“It’s like a bunch of rock bands, we all share members and performers. Sure there’s a lot of stuff going on, but there are always more stages and more shows to be performed.”

All of that sounds really idyllic, but Jastroch understands that this is a business at the end of the day.

“I’d like to see a little industry presence going forward,” he admits, almost guiltily, but that’s mainly a quest for enlightenment. “I want people to know and see all the amazing performers we have here, and that you don’t need a lot of imdb credits to be great.”