A local comedian has the opportunity to go big and needs your help.

Niek Theelen is a comedian based out of Red Deer. He received word last week that he was 1 of 100 Canadian Comedians and one of only 5 Alberta Comedians selected to participate in CBC's ‘Next Up’ Comedy contest for a chance to perform at this year’s Halifax Comedy Festival. 

“It’s a great opportunity for comedians to get themselves out there,” says Theelen.

He has been performing for four years and was thrilled to be given an opportunity like this.

People can vote once a day until March 15th and then they will tally up the winner, and the votes are quite important considering he’s got a long list of competition.

“I was added to what’s called a long list and what they have done is they’ve selected 100 comedians from all over Canada.”

Theelen says it’s a fairly exciting competition and they have him doing some pretty interesting content.

“Throughout the process, they give out challenges to post, so last week we had to do write a joke about our commute so I had to come up with something funny about driving to work.”

To learn more about Niek Theelen comedy or to vote, you can head to their website.