While this year's "Bowral of Laughs" was the result of eight months of planning, festival organisers are keen to maximise all the planning time available to them to ensure next year's comedy festival is even better than the first.

Early suggestions include plans to host two comedy gala concerts following the sell-out success of Saturday night's gig.

"The gala was a total sell-out and 100 people had to be turned away," festival organiser and comedian Anthony Ackroyd said.

The popular Short Comedy Film competition will also return next year after it, too, was a sell-out event.

From a field of high-quality films, judges awarded the $5000 first prize to 2004 Tropfest winner "The Money" directed by Gary Eck and produced by Philip Wade.

The $2000 second prize was split between two films - "Top Blokes" directed by Gareth Caverley and "Final Cut" by Justin Case- while the best screenplay award went to Bryan Moses for his work "Timing Direct".

Organisers will also look at inviting a high-profile Hollywood player along to the film night next year following the success of the "Tales of Hollywood" interview with Golden Globe-winning producer Martin Brown.

Ackroyd said festival organisers were delighted with the support they received from the local community for the first ever "Bowral of Laughs", and were bursting with ideas for next year's event.

"We had no idea people would come out and support it like they did," he said.