Most arts competitions pick one genre and build an age ladder around it. The cultural competitions of the Francophone Games (Jeux de la Francophonie) — the arts program run alongside the sports Games by the International Committee of the Francophone Games (CIJF), part of the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF) — do neither. Ten disciplines as different as Singing and Freestyle Ball Juggling share one single age band, entries only reach the Games through a government-run national quota, and the judging panel hands out medals with no published marking scheme at all. If you’re setting up software for a multi-discipline cultural competition run by a federation rather than a single club, this is a genuinely different shape to plan for.
What the Francophone Games cultural competitions actually are
The Francophone Games pair a sports program with a parallel cultural (arts) program, held roughly every four years for OIF member states and governments — competitors don’t enter as individuals off the street; a competitor’s own government puts them forward. The cultural program runs ten official competitions: Singing, Tales and Storytelling, Digital Creation, Creative Dance, Freestyle Ball Juggling, Literature (Short Story), Painting, Sculpture/Installation, Photography and Acting. Every discipline is open to men and women on the same terms — there’s no gender split anywhere in the program.
Ten disciplines, but not one shared entry format
This is the first planning trap: a single “cultural competition” actually carries two different entry shapes, and which one applies depends on the discipline, not on a rule that’s the same everywhere.
| Discipline | How you enter |
|---|---|
| Painting, Sculpture/Installation, Photography, Literature (Short Story) | Individual only — one competitor |
| Tales and Storytelling | Individual only — one storyteller (a musician may accompany, uncounted) |
| Singing | Individual or Team — one singer, or a group of up to 5 on stage |
| Digital Creation | Individual or Team — one competitor, or a group of up to 4 |
| Creative Dance | Team only — a group of 2 to 10 |
| Freestyle Ball Juggling | Team only — a group of up to 5 |
| Acting | Team only — a group of up to 7 |
Singing and Digital Creation are the only two disciplines that exist as both an Individual competition and a separate Team competition at the same Games — everything else is fixed one way or the other. A rigid “every item is either solo or group, pick one at setup” template can’t represent that split; it has to be modelled per discipline, item by item.
One age band for everyone — no age ladder at all
Almost every competition this blog has covered — kalolsavam, eisteddfod, feis, Naadam — splits its field into several age bands. The Francophone Games don’t. Every discipline, individual or team, runs on the same single band: competitors must be over 18 and under 35 during the Games. For the performance disciplines (Singing, Creative Dance, Tales and Storytelling, Acting) that age limit applies only to the performers themselves — an accompanying musician or support person isn’t checked against it. There’s no junior division, no senior division, nothing to promote anyone out of — it’s a single open adult band for the entire cultural program, which simplifies the setup considerably compared to a multi-tier school festival.
Getting to the Games is its own competition
What makes this program genuinely unusual isn’t the stage judging — it’s everything that happens before a competitor ever performs. Entry runs through OIF member states and governments, not open public registration: each state pre-selects a fixed quota of three competitors per discipline at the national level, and from every country’s pre-selections, an international pre-selection round narrows the field to up to 30 artists per discipline before the Games themselves. A competition can even be cancelled outright if fewer than 8 entries survive that funnel. For an organiser, that’s a two-stage selection pipeline sitting in front of the judged event — national quota, then international shortlist — which is a very different registration problem from a school or club simply opening sign-ups to anyone eligible.
How the medals are judged
Each of the ten competitions is judged by its own 5-member jury (one president, four members), and the jury ranks entries to award gold, silver and bronze medals, plus two further mentions — three medal winners and two honourable mentions per discipline. The rules print no numeric marking scheme, no judging criteria breakdown and no time limits for any discipline, and medals carry zero bonus points — there’s nothing to total up into a combined score. The jury’s decision is a ranked placing reached by its own judgment, not a points-based rubric an organiser could copy. That’s consistent with a federation-run, once-every-few-years competition: the structure (who qualifies, how many medals) is standardised across every edition, but the actual scoring judgment is left to that edition’s jury rather than published in advance.
How this maps onto eTalenter
Each of the ten disciplines sets up as its own competition item, with the Individual/Team split applied exactly where the rules print it rather than assumed to be uniform — Painting and Photography stay Individual-only, Creative Dance and Acting stay Team-only, and Singing and Digital Creation each get both an Individual item and a separate Team item under the same single 18–35 age group. Because the jury hands out a ranked placing with no points behind it, the result records as a Rank (Gold/Silver/Bronze plus two Mention entries) with bonus points left at zero, instead of forcing a numeric leaderboard the source rules never published. And because entry itself is quota-controlled rather than open, the national pre-selection and the international shortlist are organiser-held decisions recorded before an entrant is even added to a competition item — eTalenter doesn’t need every entrant pre-loaded to run the judged stage of a federation-style competition like this.
FAQ
Do the Francophone Games cultural competitions have age categories like a school festival?
No. Every discipline runs on one single age band, competitors over 18 and under 35 during the Games — there’s no junior/senior split or age-based promotion anywhere in the cultural program.
Can anyone register directly for a Francophone Games cultural competition?
No. Entry runs through each OIF member state’s own government, which pre-selects a fixed quota of three competitors per discipline; an international pre-selection round then narrows that pool further before the Games.
Is Freestyle Ball Juggling really judged the same way as Painting?
They’re both ranked by their own 5-member jury into gold/silver/bronze plus two mentions, but Freestyle Ball Juggling is Team-only (a group of up to 5) while Painting is Individual-only — the entry format and the judging panel are discipline-specific, not shared.
Is there a published scoring rubric for these competitions?
No. The rules print no marking scheme, judging-criteria breakdown or time limits for any of the ten disciplines — the jury ranks entries by its own judgment, and medals carry zero printed bonus points.
Can a competition be cancelled if too few people enter?
Yes. The rules allow a discipline to be cancelled outright if fewer than 8 entries survive the national and international pre-selection stages.
See it before you set it up
Open a live eTalenter demo and log in as a demo coordinator or judge — no sign-up needed — to see how per-discipline Individual/Team items, a single open age band and rank-only (no-points) medal results work inside one event. For the wider setup, see our competition management software overview and the judging & tabulation guide, or compare how another federation-run arts competition structures its own rounds in our national music competition article. Running your own multi-discipline cultural competition on eTalenter? Message us on WhatsApp at +91 96056 56508 or support@etalenter.com — we can help with the software, not with entries or selection into someone else’s competition.
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