On Friday 15 April 2016 at Melbourne Town Hall 12 of the nation’s best schoolyard comedy acts took to the Main Hall stage with their funniest five-minutes of material, competing in the Class Clowns National Grand Final for their chance to be crowned the most hilarious teen act in the country.

Having conquered heats and state finals across the country, these teenage stand-ups, sketch and musical comedy maestros performed in front of a panel of industry experts. The winner for 2016 was 17-year-old Lauren Duong (Narrabundah College, ACT) who wowed the judges with her set about feeling like a fake Asian and the difficulties of learning and speaking Chinese.

Lauren walks away with a prize of $1500 for herself, a $1000 workshop package for her school and, best of all, the Class Clowns trophy.

Equal runner up was awarded to Morgan Carter, Queensland Academy for Creative Industries (QLD) and Chance Dixon, Katherine High School (NT).

Judges for the day were comedians Hannah Gadsby and Kevin Kropinyeri, Nathan Lloyd (Casting Director, Mullinars) and Catherine Andrews.

The excellent day of high calibre teenage comedy was hosted by 2015 Class Clowns Winners Will McKenna and Ethan Cavanagh and featured performances by 2015 Melbourne International Comedy Festival Comic’s Choice Award Winner Anne Edmonds and Korean comedy beatbox sensation ONGALS whilst the judges made their grueling decision.