FAQs

Rainbow Roll Fest is a 3-day online festival celebrating LBGTQIA+-led Actual Play shows. 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!

Rainbow Roll Fest will take place over the weekend of June 28th-30th, 2024.

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 are open from March 18th through April 19th, 2024.

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. (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. 

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 knowingly use generative AI for art, performances, scripted performed content, or music. 

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.  

At Rainbow Roll Network and Rainbow Roll Fest, we have a strong commitment to accessibility. Captions are a fantastic access tool, and we strongly encourage you to use them whenever possible!

Captions make shows more accessible to many folks, but they do have some limitations: for example, they aren't automatically picked up by screen readers. Transcripts provide access to folks using screen readers and folks who process best by reading and need to spend more time with the text than captions allow, to name only a couple of examples. For this reason, we require applicants to provide transcripts.

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. We reserve the right to deny admission if your show's values do not align with our values of respect, inclusion, and care for marginalized communities. 

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 cast 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.

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.

At Rainbow Roll Fest, we have two awards “tracks” for shows: audio and video. Most awards categories are given to one audio-based show and one video-based show, with a couple of awards geared only toward video and a few awards where one award is presented to all formats. 

Your show is a good fit for our audio track if: 

• The show is based primarily around voice performance

• If hosted on a video-based platform like YouTube or Twitch, the show may have static or dynamic overlays as a complement to voice performance

• The show is available on at least one major podcast player 

Your show is a good fit for our video track if: 

• The show is based primarily around video capture of performer’s faces and/or bodies (including v-tubers) 

• The show features actors filmed in-studio or captured remotely via online recording (Zoom, OBS, etc.)

• The show features detailed animation sequences 

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 review 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.

Award 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 and/or membership in Rainbow Roll Network.