Contests and Judges

I saw it happen once and didn’t think it would happen again….   I was wrong!

Another karaoke contest, advertised as a “American Idol” contest and right from the beginning a lack of understanding about how contests should run and poor execution once it was on the roll.  I won’t keep you in the dark,  it was the Lady Luck’s Cowgirl Up “American Idol” contest.   If you wanted to enter this contest you filled out their contest card with the appropriate information but if you wanted to be considered as a contestant for the qualifier you had to buy a drink.  Only then was your name put in the container and eligible to qualify, but it doesn’t stop there.  They were only taking 10 contestants a night, your name was drawn out of the container and there was no cutoff as to what time you had to be there to qualify.   Potentially you could have been there since happy hour and waited ‘til closing and not been called to sing.  You think that’s it… you’re wrong, they maintained their regular schedule of music, had a “non-contest” karaoke singer, more music, had the cowgirls dance on the bar, more music and then a qualifying contestant would have an opportunity to sing.  This would repeat itself for the entire evening until they had their ten and only ten contestants.   Then you wait for the final…   Oops, sorry we had to reschedule because someone couldn’t count on the calendar and make sure that night was available for the contest finals… and no karaoke monitor.

(no big deal there, you should know your song for five grand)

Finals night… turns out the judging criteria was broken down into sections with numerous subsections.  This really put the numbers up there for the scores… and each contestant got to sing two songs… really jack the scores up.   Did I mention that besides the $5,000 there was also a prize for a 4 hour recording session for a demo disc.  Oh yeah, the contributor of that was also one of the judges… hmmm … nahhh!

Here are some clues for those of you considering having a contest, 1) establish your rules and be clear on all of them before you start your contest,  2) get your scheduling straight, 3) if your going to limit your qualifiers for the evening,  first come first serve and be there before the qualifying starts, 4) don’t expect your contestants to be buying drinks, the last thing any serious contestant is going to do for a chance at $5,000 is get themselves intoxicated before they sing, 5) get your qualifying out of the way in short order (some of them have jobs to go to in the morning), 6) get all of your judges from the outside and be sure they have no vested interest in the outcome of the contest.

And,  Oh Yeah….   Have fun!!!