Read carefully

This event is open to students aged 18 years or over on January 1, 2023, enrolled in full-time tertiary education in the UK. You will be required to produce some form of student ID at your heat to prove your eligibility.

Applicants must submit a completed application form online at chortle.co.uk by 4pm on February 9, 2023. By submitting an application form, all applicants agree to abide by these rules.

Organisers may reject or disqualify any application at their discretion, and the judges' decision to which act wins each heat is final. No justification will be given, and no correspondence entered into. Unfortunately, we cannot provide individual feedback about any performance.

Winners of each heat will be invited to perform at One of Two semi-finals, along with wildcard performers chosen at the judges' discretion or via a people's choice voting mechanism. Acts will be selected at the semi-finals to take part in the final at the Edinburgh Fringe.

The organisers will strive to accommodate acts in the heat of their choice, but this cannot be guaranteed. Entrants must specify three different choices of heats

Performances should last five minutes for the heats and seven minutes for semi-final and the final, with 30 seconds leeway either side. Acts will be given a visual indication when their time is about to expire. Contestants must use their own, original material. Acts in the final or semi-final may use the same material as they did in the heats, or a different set, without prejudice.

By appearing in the competition, you grant chortle.co.uk the right to use audio and video footage plus still photography from the heats and final, free of charge, in any form. Chortle retains the rights to use all such footage in perpetuity. We will place clips of all entrants on to video sites including, but not limited to, YouTube. Entrants may use any video footage of their own performance in any not-for-profit manner, including as a showreel.

Please note that all footage will remain on YouTube for at least four years until the end of this competition. After that we may consider requests for removal of footage from the heats (but not the final) and only if you are no longer involved in comedy in any form, or otherwise in the public eye. This will be at our discretion, and you are reminded that we will always retain the rights. 

All costs incurred by acts in participating in the competition including but not limited to any travel and accommodation, will be at the performers' own expense.

Contestants shall comply with reasonable requests for interviews and promotional appearances in connection with the event.

Heat winners will be announced on the night listed at www.chortle.co.uk after each heat. The best runners-up, selected to take part in the semi-finals, will be announced shortly after the final heat. The act selected as the winner of the final by a panel of judges will win £1,000 and the runner-up will win £250.

To the extent permitted by applicable law, contestants participate in the event entirely at their own risk and the organisers accept no liability for any injury, accident, loss of property, defamation or other claim arising from an artist's participation in the event, except where such liability cannot be excluded at law.

Personal information submitted on the application will be used for the purposes of organising the event and related marketing and promotional activities – but not other uses. The information will be stored on servers hosted by Google, but otherwise will not be passed to any third party.

The organisers reserve the right to terminate or modify the event or any of its heats at any time, with no liability to any contestant. The organisers reserve the right to make amendments to these rules. Any changes will be posted on this page and communicated by email to those who have already entered.

The organiser is Chortle Comedy Ltd, 112 Norman Road, London E11 4RL.

Published: 29 Jan 2023