Search for speech and drama festival almost anywhere in Australia, Canada, the UK or across the Commonwealth, and you’ll find the same shape of event running under a different local name: a community-run competitive festival where performers enter Monologue, Duologue, Group Scenes, Poetry, Prose, Public Speaking and Storytelling classes, each priced and timed separately by age band. It is the English-language, Western cousin of a feis or a kalolsavam — a real, recurring, judged competition circuit — and it is run under one of a small number of coordinating festival federations rather than by any single school or club. This guide explains the structure verified directly from three such festivals’ own published syllabuses, and what it takes to run a speech and drama festival or a Kiwanis-style verse-speaking competition on software built for exactly this kind of grid.
Two axes, not one: the same classes repeated across every age band
Every one of these festivals builds its schedule from the same small family of classes — Monologue (Solo Acting), Duologue, Group Scenes or Group Presentation, Poetry, Prose, Public Speaking, Storytelling, and sometimes a Shakespearean or Verse-Speaking class — and then repeats every one of those classes at every age tier. A festival with 6–8 class families and 3–7 age tiers is not offering 6–8 competitions; it is offering 20 to 60 separately entered, separately timed and separately priced classes. That is the same structural mechanic that makes an Irish feis hard to run by spreadsheet — age and item as two independent axes — applied here to an entirely different, English-language circuit.
| Class family | Entered as | What it tests |
|---|---|---|
| Monologue / Solo Acting | Individual | A single prepared dramatic piece |
| Duologue / Duologue Acting | Team (2 performers) | A scripted two-hander scene |
| Group Scenes / Group Presentation | Team (3–15 performers) | An ensemble scripted scene |
| Poetry / Verse Speaking | Individual | A memorised or read poem |
| Prose | Individual | A prepared prose reading |
| Public Speaking | Individual | An original or set-topic speech |
| Storytelling | Individual | A told, not read, narrative |
| Shakespearean Monologue | Individual | A Shakespeare-text solo piece |
What’s actually verified, from three festivals’ own current syllabuses
Rather than describe the format in the abstract, here is what three real festivals — one in Australia, one in Canada, one in the UK — publish in their own 2026/2027 official syllabus documents. Each uses a different age ladder, but the same two-axis mechanic underneath.
| Festival (verified from its own syllabus) | Age ladder | Sample class & time limit | Fee pattern |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Queensland (Australia) junior eisteddfod, 2026 schedule | 3 tiers — Grades 2–6, 7–9, 10–12 | Duologue: 3 min (Grades 2–6) rising to 4 min (Grades 7–12); Group Presentation 4 min flat, 3–10 performers | Flat fee per class across all tiers (AUD 15–22), independent of age |
| A major-city Kiwanis-network festival, Canada, 2026 syllabus | 7 tiers — Beginner (6–8) through Advanced (19–28) | Every solo class: 5 min flat across all 7 tiers; Group Scenes (3–15 players): 10 min flat | Fee rises with age tier (CAD 46 Beginner → CAD 54 Advanced for solo classes; CAD 74 flat for Group Scenes) |
| A UK creative arts festival, 2027 drama syllabus | 7 tiers — 6&Under through Open (18+) | Solo Acting: 1 min (6&Under) rising to 6 min (Open); Duologue Acting: 3 min rising to 6 min | Fee rises with age tier (from roughly £6.67 up to £16 for solo entries) |
The pattern holds even where the details diverge. One festival keeps entry fees flat regardless of age and only the time limit changes; the other two scale the fee upward with age as well as the time limit. Two use a 7-tier age ladder running from early childhood to adult; the third uses a simpler 3-tier school-grade ladder. None of that is a coincidence — it’s the same underlying model (class × age tier, each combination independently configured) expressed with different numbers by different festival committees.
The federation network behind the format
These festivals aren’t isolated local events — most run under one of two coordinating networks. Across the UK, Commonwealth countries and several other regions, local festivals affiliate with the British and International Federation of Festivals for Music, Dance and Speech, which sets shared conventions (non-competitive adjudication feedback, common class naming, shared syllabus structure) that member festivals then adapt locally. In Canada, many cities run a Kiwanis Music Festival, sponsored by local Kiwanis service clubs, with top performers eligible to advance to Provincial and then National Finals — a real, verified detail: the reference festival’s own syllabus sets a minimum adjudicator mark (85 out of 100) for scholarship eligibility, on top of the class placements. Individual town or school committees run the actual event day, but the federation is what makes the format recognisable from one city to the next.
Scoring: marks and placements, sometimes with advancement
An adjudicator (often just one per class, unlike a multi-judge panel) marks each performance and gives spoken or written feedback, then places entrants first, second, third and so on within that class and age tier. Some networks layer a marks threshold on top of the placement — the Kiwanis-style network’s own syllabus verifies a minimum mark of 85/100 for scholarship eligibility, separate from the class placement itself — and the strongest performers from a local festival can advance to a regional or national final under that network. None of the three festivals referenced above publishes a single shared scoring rubric (technique, characterisation, diction, etc. are adjudicator judgement, not a published weighted table), so an organiser building a fair scoring system still has to decide and publish specific criteria; see our judging and tabulation guide for how to structure one a single adjudicator can apply consistently across dozens of small classes in one day.
How this differs from an eisteddfod or a debate tournament
It’s easy to lump every “festival” together, but the shapes are genuinely different. A Welsh-style youth eisteddfod runs a full multi-discipline syllabus — music, dance, art and speech together under one umbrella — where speech and drama is one section among several. This format is narrower and deeper: speech and drama is the whole festival, which is why it can afford 8 class families across 7 age tiers instead of one or two speech classes inside a bigger programme. It is also not a debate tournament — there’s no motion, no opposing sides and no rebuttal; every class here is a prepared or told solo or ensemble performance, judged on delivery and craft rather than argument.
Setting up a speech and drama festival in eTalenter
- Age Groups Setup — build whichever ladder fits your circuit: a simple 3-tier school-grade band, or a fuller 7-tier Beginner–through–Adult ladder. Both are just rows in Age Groups Setup, not a code change.
- Competition Items — Monologue, Duologue, Group Scenes, Poetry, Prose, Public Speaking, Storytelling and any Shakespearean/Verse class your festival runs.
- Assign Competitions to Groups — this is where the grid gets built: each class assigned to every age tier it runs at, with its own time limit and (if you charge per class) its own fee — exactly the class × age-tier matrix the reference festivals publish.
- Participant type — Individual for Monologue/Poetry/Prose/Public Speaking/Storytelling, Team for Duologue (2) and Group Scenes (3–15), with a roster per team via registration.
- Scoring Setup — a marks-based scale (out of 10 or out of 100, matching your adjudicators’ convention) plus placements per class per age tier, and a separate advancement flag if top performers qualify to a regional or national final.
- Time Management — dozens of short classes (1–10 minutes each) across a single day means the running order and buffer time matter more here than in almost any other format; build the schedule with per-class time limits already loaded rather than estimating on the day.
- Results and publishing — publish results online by class and age tier, with adjudicator feedback attached where your festival shares written comments.
The same flexible age-group and item-assignment model that handles a 3-tier Australian schedule or a 7-tier Canadian one also runs a school kalolsavam, an elocution and speech competition, or a feis — different class lists, different age ladders, one configurable scoring engine underneath.
Frequently asked questions
What is a speech and drama festival?
A community-run competitive festival, common across Australia, Canada, the UK and other Commonwealth countries, offering classes such as Monologue, Duologue, Group Scenes, Poetry, Prose, Public Speaking and Storytelling. Each class is entered and judged separately at every age tier the festival runs, producing dozens of distinct competitions from a small list of class types.
How is a speech and drama festival scored?
An adjudicator marks each performance and gives feedback, then ranks entrants within their class and age tier. Some networks also set a minimum mark for scholarship eligibility or advancement to a regional or national final, separate from the class placement. Specific judging criteria are usually left to the adjudicator’s professional judgement rather than a published weighted rubric.
How is this different from an eisteddfod?
A Welsh-style youth eisteddfod runs a full multi-discipline syllabus — music, dance, art and speech together — with speech as one section among several. A speech and drama festival is narrower and deeper: speech and drama classes are the entire programme, which is why the format can run so many class-and-age combinations in a single day.
Running a speech and drama festival, verse-speaking circuit, or any judged performance program?
If your event needs a class-by-age-tier grid with its own time limits and fees, per-class registration, and adjudicator scoring that tabulates and publishes automatically, eTalenter sets the whole structure up as one system instead of a spreadsheet per class. Talk to us on WhatsApp or email support@etalenter.com.
The class families, age ladders, fees and time limits described in this article are drawn directly from three real festivals’ own official 2026/2027 syllabus documents (Australia, Canada and the UK); individual local committees are described generically, not named, since this format is run by dozens of near-identical local festivals worldwide under a small number of coordinating federations. No scoring rubric beyond the marking scale and placement/advancement rules noted above is asserted as any festival’s fixed rule — organisers should decide and publish their own judging criteria. Always check your own festival’s current syllabus for its exact classes, ages, fees and deadlines.
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