Rainbow Roll Fest

Rainbow Roll Fest is a 3-day online festival celebrating LBGTQIA+-led Actual Play podcasts and streams. Rainbow Roll Fest is brought to you by Rainbow Roll Network (that's us!). This is the fest's third year, and we are so excited for what is in store!

The fourth annual Rainbow Roll Fest will take place in June 2025.

We are able to admit a maximum of 24 shows to the festival, and we hope to have all 24 spots filled.  

We are defining "Actual Play" as any show where the hosts or cast members roleplay a story together using any system, including just improvising. Shows that contain non-AP segments, such as reviews or discussion, are eligible as well.

Our initial screening crew, made up of Rainbow Roll Network members, will review your submissions. Our first priority is to ensure the information from your application (for example, the content rating for your show) is accurate. Next, we will forward your screeners to our panel of judges,  who will help us determine which shows are accepted to the fest.

Applications will be open in early 2025. More details will be provided then. 

You can start the application process at our Ko-fi page. After you pay the entrance fee, you'll be directed to our submissions form. If the entrance fee presents financial hardship for you and you'd like to inquire about reduced fees or a scholarship, please email us at rainbowrollfest@gmail.com. 

The Ko-fi link is: https://ko-fi.com/s/bac8de6f59

Our entry fee helps cover the cost of labor and hosting for the Fest. We try to keep it significantly lower than most web fest fees, which typically range from $40-$80. If our fee presents financial hardship for you, please reach out to us at rainbowrollfest@gmail.com for reduced fee and scholarship information.

We strongly encourage you to submit a festival cut of your show. More specifically, we have the following minimum expectations: 

1. Your screeners, web presence, and social media presence (show, cast, and crew) must align with our values of respect, inclusion, and care for marginalized communities.  

2. Screeners are between 30-45 minutes long. We have a minimum length requirement of 30 minutes. Material that exceeds 45 minutes will not be screened at the fest or reviewed by our judges.

3. Audio or visual material must be accompanied by an accurate English-language transcript for our accessibility requirements. Captions are strongly encouraged, but not required. If your show is primarily played in a language other than English, we welcome transcripts in that language as well! Because we broadcast to an audience composed mainly of English speakers, we do require an English-language transcript. 

4. Audio-only files must be accompanied by cover art or a still image while audio plays. 

5. Screeners must include content warnings. (For your convenience, here is a database of common content warnings.)

6. Screeners must include credits detailing featured cast and crew, artists, musicians, etc. 

7. Your submission must have been released after January 1, 2023. 

8. Your show does not use generative AI for art, performances, scripted performed content, or music. 

We aim to feature a wide range of art that showcases many styles, themes, and perspectives. However, there are a few things that we don't showcase:

1. Screeners that do not uphold our values of respect, inclusion, and care for marginalized communities.

2. Screeners that feature performers known to behave in ways that do not uphold our values of respect, inclusion, and care for marginalized communities.

3. Screeners edited so that the audience primarily experiences a sequence of short clips in very rapid succession for a significant duration of the screener (clips under a minute in length generally fall into this category; clips that last only a few seconds each definitely do). 

4. Screeners that use generative AI for art, performances, scripted performed content, or music. 

We regret that we are unable to offer ANY extensions past our application deadline. Not for screeners, not for transcripts, not for a late application. We know that life happens and sometimes an extension would be really really helpful, and we're not doing this because we want to be unfeeling or inflexible. We've instituted this policy because when we've offered extensions in the past, it has always resulted in a lot more work and stress for us on the back end of things. 

Rainbow Roll Fest is planned by a team of volunteers. Most of us have full-time jobs and also make art or have other creative endeavors in addition to our jobs and this festival. Many of us are also disabled and/or neurodivergent. After three years of trying out various ways of offering extensions that felt fair to everyone applying to the Fest and fair to us, we've realized that there just isn't a way to do it that doesn't result in a lot more stress for us behind the scenes. That's why we've decided that this year, our deadlines are going to be very firm. We encourage you to start your application process early and leave plenty of time to spare in case life happens and you need some wiggle room. And if you don't make it in this year, we hope to see you next year! 

Festival cuts can be a selection of clips which tell a story, and/or which you feel highlight the best parts of your show, or one long segment of an episode. Festival cuts should demonstrate the qualities of your show that make it unique, enjoyable, and innovative.  

We welcome shows with sensitive topics/shows that aim to be transgressive art that are made with player and audience safety and consent in mind. We require all shows to submit descriptions, ratings, and content warnings as part of the application process. 

Shows in the festival will be given a 45-minute chunk of time. As noted above, we strongly recommend submitting a festival cut of your show. 

In the past, we have accepted special format shows like live shows and summary shows as part of Rainbow Roll Fest. This year, all special format shows must request specific approval from Rainbow Roll Fest organizers via our submissions form. If accepted to the Fest as a special format show, your show will not be eligible for awards. We realize this may be a bummer, but it keeps labor expectations fair for our judges (and judging expectations fair for all shows).   

We are defining "LGBTQIA+ led" as any show with hosts, cast members, or production team members who identify as any part of the LGBTQIA+ spectrum.

If your show isn't LGBTQIA+ led, you are still welcome to apply! However, we will be prioritizing LGBTQIA+ led shows.

Streams, prerecorded video APs, and podcasts are all welcome to apply!

We will announce the accepted shows by June 3, 2024.

We will announce the accepted shows by May 1, 2023.Our awards are intended to celebrate and honor AP artists, especially  LGBTQIA+ AP artists, for outstanding achievements and innovation in the art form of Actual Play.

Every submission accepted to Rainbow Roll Fest is eligible for our festival awards.

Each show self-nominates for every award you would like to be considered for. You may do so in the nominations section of our submissions form. You are encouraged to nominate your show for multiple awards, but you are not required to nominate it for awards if you don't want to!  

Nope, our $20 submission fee covers that!

Our judges are individuals who are active in the field of Actual Play as creators, performers, producers, thinkers, writers, and fans. 

The judges will listen to each screener and judge entries according to a rubric provided by Rainbow Roll Network. We provide brief summaries of what we ask judges to look for in each category on the nominations form. 

No. Rainbow Roll Network members are automatically accepted to Rainbow Roll Fest but are nominated and judged for awards using the same process as non-network shows.

Awards winners will be announced in the closing ceremony of the Fest on Twitch on June 30th, 2024. 

It's fine if you know or guess the identity of one or more of our judges! Please do not contact them about the judging process. If we learn that any member of a show's team has contacted a judge about the judging process, or has tried to influence judging outcomes, that show will be automatically disqualified from this year's Rainbow Roll Fest and may be banned from future Fests.