The Bigfoot Poetry Festival is a three-day poetry event that happens in early summer in downtown Portland, OR. While changing from year-to-year, typically this festival offers such features as poetry open mics, writing / performance workshops, poet showcases, an artists market, and a poetry slam tournament.
Bigfoot Regional Poetry Slam is a three-day competition, part of the Bigfoot Poetry Festival. Sixteen teams of four (or sometimes five) poets compete in team poetry slams, culminating in a final event where the top four teams win prizes. Click here for the official rules of the competition.
The next Bigfoot Poetry Festival is comprised of multiple events happening all day on June 13th - 15th, 2024. There will be an optional meet-and-greet event in the evening before the festival begins for anyone traveling into the city a day early.
The registration fee for each team of 4-5 poets is $150.
Every dollar paid into registration goes toward the cash prizes awarded at the end of the final event.
In addition to glory, applause, and trophies, winning teams receive $1,200 for first place, $600 for second place, $400 for third place, or $200 for fourth place.
Sign-ups will open at 12:00PM PST on January 20th. To register, you’ll click the registration button on the home page of this website, which will take you to a Google form to fill out for submission. There are sixteen spots, and the first sixteen teams to submit will be the teams registered and competing. Any teams that submit after the spots are filled will be placed on a wait list.
After you have received confirmation that your team is registered, send the registration fee of $150 within three weeks to the Bigfoot Festival’s PayPal (bigfootregional@gmail.com) to officially reserve your spot. If another form of payment works better, please email bigfootregional@gmail.com to talk about an option that works for your team.
If payment is not received within three weeks of registering and we have not heard from you, your team’s spot will be given to the team at the top of the wait list and your team will be moved to the bottom.
Teams can be formed in any way that works for the poets. Teams formed by local slams, mics, college clubs, etc. are all accepted at Bigfoot Regional Poetry Slam. Pickup teams, formed by four to five poets from one or more poetry scenes, are also accepted. The process for how teams are formed is up to the poets and/or venue sending the team.
No, there are no age restrictions. The preliminaries and finals venue are all ages. Not all day / evening event locations are guaranteed to allow all ages. Age restrictions, if any, will be communicated to all registered teams ASAP.
Yes! Only one representing team per open mic/slam is encouraged, but if your city has multiple poetry venues, or some local poets who’d like to form their own separate team, they are all allowed to come out and compete.
© 2018 Bigfoot Poetry Festival