Ethan Cavanagh to perform Presentation is Everything in Ballarat

After taking out a top award at the Dunedin Fringe Festival, he played to sold out crowds at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF), performed in Darwin, and is now set for a string of shows including a "homecoming" in Ballarat.

The show, which Cavanagh performs with his long-term collaborator Sweeney Preston, is coming to the Ballaarat Mechanics' Institute on Saturday, August 26.

The duo have been performing Presentation is Everything - An Hour of Power(Point Comedy) for two years, for which they have enjoyed sold out runs at MICF in 2022 and 2023, and won the best comedy award at the 2023 Dunedin Fringe Festival.

Cavanagh described the show as the comedians' take on nightmarishly dull PowerPoint presentations.

"This show's perfect for anyone who has ever been personally victimised by Microsoft PowerPoint," he said.

"There are about 670 slides about PowerPoint, so there's a lot of laughs permitted, it's pretty rapid fire.

"A lot of people put up with boring pitches and dull presentation at uni, or work, or school, and so we've taken that and flipped it on it's head, we're using PowerPoint as almost a healing process for people."

After two years of performances, the 24-year-old comedian said he was looking forward to bringing the show to an end with a live-recording in front of a familiar crowd.

Cavanagh spent his early years in Ararat, before moving to Ballarat once he started high school, and said growing up in a regional setting had help shape his comedy career.

"The [regional] crowds are better objectively, because people don't just sit in traffic for 40 minutes to get there, it's really easy to reach people and the shows are a lot more fun," he said.

"A big part of why I'm a comic now is because my mum was really good at taking us to see whatever it is that came to town.

"So I'm excited to be bringing it [the show] home to where it all started; without giving anything away the show is largely about regional towns."

If the young comedian is feeling any pressure about performing a show in front of people that saw him growing up, he's hiding it well.

But, after about seven years of performing comedy, Cavanagh said he would love for people who he grew up with to see how far he'd come.

"Anyone who's curious about - 'let's go see if he's any good' - this is the moment," he said.

"This is a show we've worked really hard on, this feels like a really nice moment for a few of those people to see how it's all going."

While the duo may be wrapping up their most successful show so far, Cavanagh said they had a lot to keep them busy.

At the 2023 MICF Cavanagh and Sweeney also performed their new show In Pour Taste, which is a comedy wine tasting experience.

Cavanagh said it had gone "great" with crowds, and would likely be the pair's next big project.

If reviews are anything to go by, the show should be as popular as Presentation is Everything - Time Out gave the comedians a glowing four star review during MICF.

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Now Cavanagh is eyeing more international performances next year, including a potential trip to Edinburgh Fringe - the world's largest performance arts festival.

"It's a really exciting time for us, because we're working on a bunch of projects and already starting to look at what next year looks like," he said.

"I think the wine tasting's going to be our next big lap around the map, and after that, we're working on some solo stuff outside of the projects that we do together as well."

"I've got a few things on the burner which is nice, and to have more and more of the day be filled up with comedy stuff is really exciting."

Presentation is Everything - An Hour of Power(Point Comedy) is playing at the Ballaarat Mechanics' Institute on Saturday, August 26.

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