The Aurora Awards celebrates the ability of media creators around the world to captivate audiences by their creative displays of color and light. Competitors come from the independent, corporate, and freelance production groups, advertising agencies, broadcast stations, large and small. The Aurora Awards is an international competition designed to recognize excellence in the film and video industries. Entries have come from across the US, and countries abroad such as Russia, Denmark, Hong Kong, Germany, Australia and Mexico among others.

Working film and video professionals in major cities across the country perform the judging functions. The basic premise of the judging structure for the Programs are judged on a fixed scale in areas of creativity, message effectiveness and technical excellence. Added together this provides a score that is measured against an absolute scale to determine if the program is award worthy or not. Winners may be awarded a "Platinum Best of Show" or a "Gold Award". The Best of show is the highest honor given. Only about one in ten receive this honor, while about two out of ten receive the Gold Award.