Whether you’re a musician, a performing artist, speaker, or workshop leader, we want to know about you! Applications open on November 15th and close the following March 15th each festival year. To apply, click here.
Selection committees from the Entertainment and Spirit & Purpose use certain criteria to guide their processes. Selection is not a contest to find the “best” bands or performers in Columbus but the committee invariably does select most of the “best” music and live arts from the Columbus community. Whether an act excels musically or professionally is obviously a subjective judgment. The exercise of that judgment is entrusted to the members of the Entertainment and Spirit & Purpose Committees who put in the time and effort required to be a member. Showing exemplary talent and creativity is just one consideration toward being selected.
ComFest seeks to find acts that help exemplify our desire to support and showcase the multiculturalism of our community. We are looking for diversity in the cultural style of the performance and in the performers themselves. This is one of the most important criteria ComFest uses in selection, and the committee makes a concerted effort to do outreach in order to find acts that meet this criteria.
Another criteria that can be important in an act getting selected is whether members of the act are active volunteers for ComFest or other community organizations. The online application provides each applicant the ability to outline their community involvement. Anyone can volunteer for the festival at comfest.com.
The committee also gives special consideration to acts that have been performing at ComFest for many years and have become ComFest fixtures and Honored Artists. On the other hand, the Entertainment and Spirit & Purpose selection committees make an effort to select acts that have never performed at ComFest. Usually, at least a third of the acts chosen have never previously performed at ComFest.
