THE campus apartment shared by the Skidmore College students Lex Curry, 21, and Ruth Morrison, 21, has been the scene of chaos for the past few months, and not in typical party-recuperate-party fashion. The living room has morphed into an ad hoc headquarters, littered with paperwork and laptops. With urgent logistical matters to sort out, Ms. Curry and Ms. Morrison’s bedroom privacy has evaporated. Scott Galante, 22, who lives down the hall, drops by constantly to talk scheduling. Ms. Morrison calls this ComFest Fortress, and said, “Hangout time turns into meetings, and meetings always end in hangout time.”

These three, all seniors, are producing this year’s National College Comedy Festival, ComFest for short. The festival, next Friday and Saturday at Skidmore, in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., showcases improv and sketch groups from colleges across the country. Since 1990 ComFest has helped cultivate a legion of comedy creators and actors whose names populate the credits of television shows like “The Office” and “Community” and films like “Our Idiot Brother.” For many participants the weekend is a turning point, a heady confirmation that, yes, this is what they want to do with their lives. What’s more, they might actually have a shot at it.

“In college the risks and rewards are in this perfect-imperfect balance,” said Adam Lustick, of the sketch group Harvard Sailing Team, whose members met at New York University. “The stakes are not that high. At Skidmore you feel like you can do anything, and I tried to hold onto that ethos when the real world started to creep in.” Harvard Sailing Team was already a professional troupe when it performed at ComFest, but like many young groups it gained early exposure and experience by participating in the festival.

Old programs are littered with household names and up-and-comers. Derrick Comedy, which formed at N.Y.U. and spawned the actors Donald Glover and D C Pierson, performed at ComFest. So did the Manhattan sketch stalwart Bleak! Comedy, as well as Michael Showalter, Justin Long and the actress Jessica St. Clair, who stars in NBC’s coming sitcom “Best Friends Forever.”