The winning team from each region proceeds to the National Festival and Tournament held in Ottawa.
The National Arts Centre is a major sponsor of the Canadian Improv Games.
David Shepherd was the producer of North America's first professional improvisational theater The Compass Players in Chicago, which, was the forerunner of the Second City.
The National Tournament has run for over forty years and was developed with the input of hundreds of teachers and professional improvisers.
The five events of the CIG challenge improvisers and their team to show a wide range of skills within a short period of time.
The format also allows for the improvisers to demonstrate and develop social and life skills such as listening, cooperation, teamwork, and being able to work under pressure.
The Online Wildcard is open to registered Canadian Improv Games student teams and offers an additional opportunity to receive feedback on their performances from CIG judges and trainers while also getting an extra chance to qualify for the National Tournament in Ottawa.
Once submitted these are then sent to the Online Wildcard Judges and Adjudicators who will then send crucial feedback that will help the growth of the team and to select a winner.
This format also focuses younger improvisers on the basic scene structure with the addition of the Open Event.
This additional format also allows for more stage time for younger players to gain confidence and performance experience in front of an audience.
An ask-for can be a variety of things, ranging from, the title of a song, a non-geographical location, or simply an adjective.
Although there is no question that improvisation is an artistic and creative endeavour, judges also take into consideration an array of specific technical skills.
These skills are making and accepting offers, advancing, listening, commitment, stakes, and staging.
Most scenes incorporate the "five elements" which include, location, relationship and characters, conflict, raising of the stakes, and a resolution.
Each team will perform on at least one night of play in their regional tournament throughout the duration of the school year.
The regional tournament is the competitive culmination of a season’s worth of training, practicing, rehearsing and performing.
• Head referee leads everyone in recitation of the Canadian Improv Games Oath.
• After all play has completed, judges go backstage to tally their scores, and referees/ volunteers spend time with the audience (read: stalling).
Each Regional tournament will offer a number of workshop and performance opportunities to teams throughout the year.
If a team is provided a suggestion that they do not understand they are allowed to request a definition, which is supplied by either a judge or referee.
It is of utmost importance that these three sections are obvious to the audience, because it is those elements that define the scene as a story.
Style showcases the team's ability to portray a certain genre of media, usually from film, theater or television.
Mime, cheesy horror film, slam poetry, Musical theater, Shakespearean play, and infomercial are examples of different styles that have been seen in performances.
The overall purpose of the games is to be a "loving competition", so a joint warm-up helps with this feeling of camaraderie, the referees tend to spread out the teams into groups of members of other teams as to build a friendly bond for the competition.
For the 1995 season YTV (TV channel) did a broadcast showing all of the teams that made the finals.
For the 2019 season Andrew Phung of Kim's Convenience fame, along with CBC Television made a mini documentary series on the canadian improv games national festival interviewing the five teams who made the finals, and the sixth place team who barely missed.