To the OIF 2025 team
Thank you for making this year's festival a success!
Photo taken by William So
A message from the Co-directors
Your festival Co-directors here! OIF 2025 is over, and what an amazing weekend it was!
This year was marked by so many successes: our first-ever Battle of the Neighbourhoods showcasing the breadth of local Ottawa talent, our first-ever Tri-City show to show off what our cities can do together, and hosting an entire weekend of improv inspiration that doubled our attendance from last year!
While we co-directed this year's festival, we certainly didn't do all the work (though possibly the most complaining)! All the good from this festival was only made possible by the effort of so many people. At the end of the final show of OIF, we missed a crucial opportunity to share the love and celebration with those people. It's late, but we'd like to rectify that now--and if you enjoyed the festival, we ask that you join us in thanking these crucial members of the OIF organizing team!
To our volunteers
We want to start by thanking our volunteer coordinator, Adriana, who made sure that our super volunteers were organized and equipped to do their jobs. Thank you to Jinnie, Una, Nick, Leichelle, Hassan, Graham, Fred, Laura, Marnie and Velvet for giving their time to the festival!
We'd also like to thank Chelsea, our social media strategist! Chelsea gave us direction on how to promote the festival, and also created the neat visual touches you may have seen around the fest, like our posters and signs. She worked with Alison Harle, who promoted our teams for the Battle of the Neighbourhoods!
To our community partners, Velvet, Rich and Patrice who talked with us about setting up the Battle of the Neighbourhoods!
Our stage managers, Woody and David, made sure that our shows ran smoothly!
Lindsey, our tech director, was up in the booth for all three nights of the festival, supporting our improvisers with years of experience!
We had a whole slew of hosts that kept the energy up and our crowds engaged. Thanks so much to Fred and Laura for hosting the Battle of the Neighbourhoods, to Michel Carpentier for hosting Better than Streaming, to Chelsea and Lily from BELT! for hosting Move to the Music, and to Ali and Dave from Utility Infield for hosting our headliner show!
The Arts Court team was also integral to setting this festival up. Our beautiful venue did not go unnoticed by our friends from out of town. Thanks so much to Ted, Garret and Glen for their time and attention this weekend!
To the festival planning team
Next up is our main festival team! From the start of planning this festival, our work was shared between a tiny but mighty team of four, including Wynn Quon and Alice Howard.
First, we've got Wynn . Working with Philippe Marchand, Wynn managed so much of our media outreach, and also ensured that things were paid for! Wynn was constantly quick to follow up with many of the tasks that came up during our meetings with a simple "yep, I'll do that", and kept up our morale with his enthusiasm for the work.
Now, we have a mountain of flowers to give to Alice . Like Wynn, they were part of our tiny, four-person committee that got this festival running. Thanks to their efforts with Wynn, we were able to receive submissions from teams to curate the festival and have them evaluated by our Selection Committee.
Many of the wonderful touches you saw around the festival were a direct result of Alice's work:
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our grand raffle prize from Boogie and Birdie
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the afterparty, including our amazing DJ and the food
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our headliner welcome packages, performer amenities and dressing room snacks
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setting up our beautiful photo wall
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figuring out how to stock the bar
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recruiting so many people to help
As you can see, no one takes a task list down like Alice!
When one of the co-directors had to take an unexpected step back for part of the fest, Alice stepped up to get things done and make decisions. Beyond that, they were a constant source of reassurance as the fest rolled on, especially when things got chaotic. (They also showed Josh how to use brow gel, which was a complete game changer!)
Alice and Wynn kept the festival on track in a way that would not have been possible without them. We want to recognize their heroic efforts.
If you thanked us, please don't forget to thank them the next time you see them!
