Improv Bingo

Improv Bingo is a show format used to enrich "normal" improv shows that mix several games.
The format was developed by the group Impromptü from Hamburg for the Second Long Impro Night 2014, where it framed a four-hour show.

Basic idea: The audience buys bingo cards listing typical words and phrases. Whenever a term on the card is spoken on stage during a scene, the spectators cross it off. As soon as a row, column or diagonal is complete, they shout "BINGO" and receive a small prize.

Bingo cards:

DIN A6 works well as the card format and they should be printed on paper of 160 g/m² or heavier. That makes them stiff enough to write on reasonably well, and standard printers can handle that paper weight. (A file with 50 pages of four bingo cards each will be uploaded here.)

The bingo cards can be sold before the show and during the interval for a small fee (for example 50 cents).

Show format:

Bingo can be staged beautifully as a show with a host, with bingo experts and with a formal handing over of the prizes. At our premiere we had a hostess, a bingo expert from the BÜV Nord (Northern Bingo Supervision Association) and a prize table full of useless trinkets from the one-euro shop.
A host dedicated to the "bingo handling" is very helpful; that person listens for "BINGO" calls during the scenes and distributes the prizes.

A short introduction to the rules is a good idea:
- Cross off words
- Row, column or diagonal counts as a BINGO
- Call "BINGO" during the scene; the scene is not interrupted, prizes follow afterwards
- The words must actually be spoken on stage; a scene set in the bedroom does not allow you to cross off "bed" right away
- Special cases that count:
- Variations: groomed -> grooming
- Euphemisms: mother -> mum
- Compounds: red -> redhead, red fox - but not Rotary
- Comparison: big -> bigger
- Declension or conjugation: the coat -> of the coat

Prizes:

• Trinkets from the one-euro shop.
• Special games as a prize, a song or a poem for the bingo winner.
• Free tickets

With about 120 spectators across the evening (a four-hour show with breaks) we sold about 110 bingo cards and there were 40 bingos. The prizes were fully financed by the card sales.

The bingo cards clearly influence the audience answers during ask-fors; spectators shout in the terms still missing on their card.

As a player you can act as a "wish fulfiller", remember the missing terms from those answers and deliberately weave them into the scene.