It marks an expansion for ORDA, which primarily focuses on athletic events. Darcy Norfolk, ORDA’s director of communications, explained the reasoning behind the strategy.

“With our newly refurbished and modernized venues, the opportunity is there not only for sporting events, which draw people to the region but also to have events that engage people already here and bring people to the area for something beyond sports,” she said. “Entertainment is one of those avenues, and we’re hoping to grow that.”

Norfolk specified that ORDA uses the term to refer to events they organize beyond sports.

In the 1980s and 1990s, ORDA hosted a number of popular musical acts in the Olympic Center’s 1980 Rink — including Willie Nelson, Rush, Bryan Adams, Tina Turner, Huey Lewis and the News, New Kids on the Block, the Grateful Dead and Phish. The first major concert in the 1980 Rink was held in June 1983 and featured the country music band Alabama, drawing more than 7,200 fans, which “signaled a new era of entertainment in Lake Placid,” stated the Lake Placid News on June 23, 1983. “The authority says it hopes to make concerts a regular part of its schedule now and over the years.”

However, the event business changed so much in the 1990s and early 2000s that ORDA stopped hosting big concerts. In October 2014, the authority hosted a bluegrass festival in the 1932 Rink with a number of award-winning national acts, including Sam Bush, Del McCoury and the region’s own Gibson Brothers, but no big concerts have been held at the Olympic Center in the past 10 years.

Comedy events are not a new kind of entertainment for the Olympic Region. The Lake Placid Center for the Arts, for example, has hosted comedians over the years. However, Jim Breuer would be the first comedy event ORDA has sponsored.

Norfolk said that ORDA would use ticket sales leading up to the comedy event as part of its evaluation for future programming choices.

While Norfolk did not mention any other specific upcoming entertainment events on the schedule, she said it is something ORDA is looking to expand its offering beyond this comedy program.

“The team at the Olympic Center, including the business manager as well as the corporate office, are looking at different options (related to expanded entertainment), so this is one of what we hope to be a successful event, and more to come in the future.”

The Jim Breuer event is being run by Miracle Entertainment. Norfolk clarified that it is ORDA running the event, as opposed to a third-party contractor. She explained the name “Miracle Entertainment” was created to better delineate their non-sports offerings at the Conference Center from the rest of the organization’s programming.

The event is slated to begin at 8 p.m. It will take place in the Lussi Ballroom, located on the second floor of the Conference Center in Lake Placid. There are 36 VIP tables in front of the stage, which were sold as of press time, and 640 regular seats behind them.

The show is part of Breuer’s national Survival with Laughter tour. The goal is to have people leave the show with a little more hope than when they arrived, according to the event’s website.

The show is exclusively for those aged 21 or older and features a dinner menu along with a range of beverage options. Tickets are on sale now, and there are a variety of seating options to choose from.

Jim Breuer was a cast member on “Saturday Night Live” from 1995 to 1998 and is best known for his Joe Pesci impersonation and playing a character called “Goat Boy.” He went on to host “The Jim Breuer Show” and starred in the film “Half Baked.”

For more information, visit https://tinyurl.com/yfyxenh5.

(Editor/Publisher Andy Flynn contributed to this story.)