Applications for the 2025 Seattle International Comedy Competition are being accepted

Competition Information

The Seattle International Comedy Competition runs in November at various venues around Western Washington.

This event differs from many other competitions. From opening night to the final show, it is four weeks long. Any performer participating will be expected to do one week of Preliminaries. If you make the cut, one week of Semifinals. If you make it to the Top Five, one week of Finals. You have to participate at least one week of Preliminaries. There are no golden tickets to the Final Round.

This competition will attract applications from hundreds of qualified comedians from around the world. Only 32 comedians will be chosen for the Seattle International Comedy Competition. If you are interested in being one of the applicants selected for this event, you must make the best possible impression with your application.

Application Rules

Applicants must be at least 21 years of age at the start of the competition. (The reason being that many of our event venues are 21+)
We only allow solo acts to participate.
This contest will occupy at least one week of your time and up to three weeks of your time if you advance to the Finals.
The application fee for this year is $25 to apply.
The application fee must be paid via PayPal form found below. Please take note of your PayPal receipt number, as you will be required to enter that on the Application Form.
Once you have paid the fee via the PayPal form, you will need to fill out the Application Form, which is found below the PayPal form below. The Application Form asks you for some basic information as well as the two most important areas of your application for talent selection:
VIDEO: This is the most important part of your application. On the Application Form, please share the URL to an on-line hosted video of you performing your comedy for an audience. We would like to see around ten consecutive minutes of you at your best, where you can clearly be seen and heard. (NOTE: We ask for “around ten minutes”–it should be at least five minutes…and if you send us more than ten minutes, we might only watch the first ten minutes.)
SHORT COMEDY BIOGRAPHY: On the application form, we would like to read no more than five sentences (around 100 words) worth of information about your comedy achievements. How long have you been performing comedy? Where have you performed comedy? Who have you worked with? Have you done other competitions or festivals? Have you done any tv? (NOTE: We do not want your press bio. Skip the boilerplate and just share your highlights with us. If you have less than five sentences worth of highlights, that’s ok. Don’t feel like you have to pad it.)

NOTE: Following instructions and giving us the information we ask for can be used as criteria for talent selection to these events.

Schedule

Week 1: First Week of November (15 Comics)
Week 2: Second Week of November (15 Comics)
Week 3: Semifinals – Third Week of November (Top 10 Comics)
Week 4: Finals – Fourth Week in November (Top 5 Comics)

Most selected performers will be able to choose which Preliminary Week they wish to participate in. There are shows each night of the scheduled week and each performer assigned to that week will perform on each of those shows.

The Top 5 performers from each week (10 comedians in all) moved on to:

Semi-Finals: Wednesday November 20 – Sunday November 24

The Top 5 performers moved on to:

Finals: Tuesday November 26 – Sunday December 1 (no show on Thanksgiving Nov. 23).

PRIZE POOL: The 2025 Seattle International Comedy Competition offers a prize pool of at least $15,000 shared by the performers who advance through the Semi-Finals or beyond. The winner will receive $5000 of that prize pool.

More than a Competition

We strongly feel this event will help you as a comedian to improve. It is part workshop, part networking, but fully a competition where you will do five shows a week in front of different crowds at different venues. If you make the Finals, you are performing 15 shows over three weeks.

Questions?

At any point, if you have questions…feel free to contact the Director of Talent, Taylor Clark.

Application Form

How To Apply • Application Form • FAQ