The laughs may have only just finished – but comedy festival organiser Geoff Rowe is already planning how to top this year's event, writes Alan Thompson.

Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival finished on Sunday, with more sold-out shows than ever before.

After more than 400 performances in 50 venues over 17 days, it has been described "the biggest and best" comedy festival in Leicester yet.

Geoff, the founder and director, is now faced with the difficult task of making next year's festival – the 20th – even better.

"There was no shortage of comedians who wanted to come this year, and the audiences flooded in," he said.

"Next year will be our 20th birthday so we need to do something special for that.

"There were 410 shows this year, which is a big increase on last year's 340. We need to look at how we can make things even bigger next year."

This year's festival attracted a host of big names, including Russell Howard, Sarah Millican, Chris Addison and Greg Davies.

The event's national profile was given a boost with front page articles in The Times, The Independent, the Mail and the Guardian. It was also featured on TV shows including This Morning, Loose Women and Alan Titchmarsh's show.

This year, it was backed for the first time by TV comedy station Dave.

"The idea was to create more of a buzz and through the backing of national TV channel Dave, it was a huge success," Geoff said. "It was the most successful festival by far. It's been incredible.

"We had acts like Sarah Millican and Russell Howard appearing in small venues. The performers love it .

"More people came from outside Leicester this year, which is great for the city, with people staying in hotels and eating in restaurants.

"We don't know about the future with Dave yet, we've got to have a number of debriefings and evaluation meetings.

"There has been some really good stuff thanks to their involvement and we'd like to carry on the relationship. It worked well and people were excited about them being involved.

"It wasn't a TV-based thing for Dave, they were more keen to stamp their brand on live comedy.

"They did a daily podcast which was in the i-Tunes top 10, so it was hugely successful."

Geoff said the festival was getting bigger every year.

"I lost count of the number of times people said it's like a new Edinburgh festival," he said. "We can only sustain that with investment.

"I've been involved from the beginning and watched it grow – keeping it growing at this pace gets harder.

"I remember when we were doing 150 shows in 10 days, people saying it couldn't get any bigger. Now it's 410 shows over 17 days."