THE FINAL
Sunday 17th June 2012
FREE, no tickets needed just rock up.
14+
ROCK CITY MAIN ARENA
Featuring these six amazing acts: http://www.nusic.org.uk/wordpress/nusic-new-music-podcast-025-81/
FACEBOOK EVENT: https://www.facebook.com/events/399839846713186/
THE FINAL RULES AND JUDGING PROCESS (With explanations)
ROUND THREE – The Final!
The voting process is quite complicated, please let us explain the method in the apparent madness.
It’s a mixed voting system, half being audience vote, half being ‘expert’ Judges vote. This is an attempt to get the best of both worlds in terms of fairness and also to create a system that helps stimulate a great event.
HAVING JUDGES:
– Addresses the natural numerical advantage of bands with public votes and so re-balances things a bit towards the solo artists.
– Makes sure raw talent, yet to build any following, is recognised.
– Gives you a chance to perform in front of connected, important music industry players, on the Nottingham level this Judging Panel is huge, pretty much every major player in Nottingham is represented! This in itself is a big opportunity regardless of the result. For example one of last years’ acts is now managed by one of last year’s judges.
Those Judges are:
Anton Lockwood – Promotions Director DHP Group (organisers of Splendour)
Craig Chettle – Managing Director Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies (owners of Denizen Recordings)
Dom Gourlay – Drowned In Sound and Contact Music
Jared Wilson – Editor In Chief LeftLion
Jason Hart – Manager of Jake Bugg
Mark Dennsion – Daytime Presenter BBC Radio Nottingham
Simon Wilson – EG Editor Nottingham Post
Read more about them HERE
We are aware there is massive lack of diversity in our judging panel. Our brief was to curate a judging panel full of the Nottingham residents most able to help our finalists, demographic diversity was not a factor.
AUDIENCE VOTE:
– Helps mobilise the troops. Knowing they can make a difference encourages friends, family and fans to come down and support in the process creating a better atmosphere for all.
– Ensures that talent talented enough to have built a following gets recognised. It always ironic when people moan, ‘they only won because they have more fans than us’
AUDIENCE VOTE METHOD – Three announced ‘audience votes’ throughout the night via a decibel-o-meter on stage taking precise Db readings of audience volume level. The thinking:
– A decibel-o-meter on the stage encourages the crowd to come to front and get boisterous, not awkwardly stand quietly at the back like a school disco.
– Taking three ‘audience votes’ throughout the night ensures fans of all acts are encouraged to watch all acts thereby creating a better atmosphere for all.
– Having three specific announced ‘audience vote moments’ means everyone will know when the vote is being taken and when to make extra noise for their fav. It also means at all other times they can get behind all acts not worrying about being seen as ‘unfaithful’! Creating a better atmosphere for all.
We will announce these audience vote moments on stage, will then read out each artist name and measure the noise from the crowd for each artist. This will be done at the start at 7pm, after the last act and one time at random.
The Judges will be marking you out of ten on these criteria:
– Stage Presence – swagger, X-Factor, engagement with audience.
– Raw Talent – as perceived by the individual judge.
– Quality of Performance – in time, in tune, hitting notes etc
– Quality of Songs – as perceived by the individual judge.
– Splendour Suitability – would you ‘work’ opening the main stage?
Seven judges scoring you out of 50, the top score will be removed and the remaining six will form a score out of 300. We remove the top score to help ensure independence and fairness. We want our judging process to be impartial and independent, striving for that over time we have realised its IMPOSSIBLE to put together a judging panel of individuals with knowledge of the Nottingham Music scene who do not have connections with musicians in that scene, everyone has their favourites. By excluding the top vote you make sure any ‘freak’ 50 out of 50 given to the act who features one of the judge’s neighbour’s sons does not bias the result.
Each of the three ‘audience votes’ will be out of 100, scores will be allocated like this:
Highest Db – 100
2nd – 85
3rd – 75
4th – 65
5th – 55
6th – 50
After three votes we will have a second score out of 300 giving each artist an overall score out of 600. Needless to say the highest score out of 600 wins that main stage slot at Splendour.
Complicated yes, but all aimed at creating the best possible atmosphere for all as well as seek a winning artist talented enough to win the love of the ‘experts’ and the people.
vlr
x
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The full FSN Semi-Final* for this weekend in the Old Market Square is as follows:
*Please note the two last minute changes, neither of which effects the voting.
SATURDAY
13:45 – Opening Act 2011 FSN Winners:THE MONEY
14:30 – JOE DANKS
15:00 – THE AFTERDARK MOVEMENT
15:30 – THE SPECIES
16:00 – JOY MUMFORD
16:30 – CRASH JACKET
17:00 – TOM WARDLE
We close with:
17:30 – SAM BEETON
has had to pull out at the last minute, Sam is replaced by one of the most talked about musicians in Nottingham, already confirmed for the Splendour line-up this year, we can’t wait to see ROB GREEN own that Market Square stage.
SUNDAY
13.30 –Opening Act 2010 FSN Winners: LONG DEAD SIGNAL
14:15 – HOT JAPANESE GIRL
14:45 – IN THE NORTH WOOD
15:15 – TRAY ELECTRIC
15:45 – MICHAEL LYNCH is replaced (performance wise, he’s still in the comp) by one of last year’s finalist’s who already been confirmed for Splendour 2012, totally awesome to have OPIE DEINO play for us all.
16:15 – GOODNIGHT ASTRONAUT
16:45 – INDIANA
We were originally going to close the day with another Nottingham artist living the dream as a professional musician but album commitments meant JAKE BUGG had to cancel, we can’t wait to hear the album!
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FSN UPDATE 19:15 Sunday 15th April 2012
The Semi-Finalists are announced in the latest NEW MUSIC PODCAST out 10am Monday 16th April 2012, click HERE.
You will be able to vote from 11pm on Tuesday 17th April 2012, click HERE.
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THE BIGGEST LOCAL MUSIC COMPETITION IN THE UK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THE FUTURE SOUND OF NOTTINGHAM COMPETITION FOR TWENTY TWELVE IS LIVE NOW!!! CLICK HERE
There are two ways of entering:
THE MAIN WAY – Eleven places are up for grabs in our SEMI-FINALS event in MARKET SQUARE, listen to the New Music Podcast from 10am on MONDAY 2nd April 2012, this is the only way of finding out how to enter.
THE LOVE WAY – One place is up for grabs in our SEMI-FINALS event in MARKET SQUARE which will go to the biggest LOVESPREADER, read more HERE.
This year every evening around midnight we will publish an update of which artists have successfully submitted their entry (thank you to Jared from LeftLion for the suggestion/ idea), this way you will know if we have received yours, due to sheer number of applicants we obviously can’t reply to individual enquiries.
To repeat, for guidance on how to enter this year’s FUTURE SOUND OF NOTTINGHAM (the main way) listen to the brand new NEW MUSIC PODCAST.
RULES
ROUND ONE MAIN RULES and JUDGING PROCESS:
YOU MUST BE FROM NOTTS – This means you (if more than one of you the majority of you) either live in the Great County of Nottinghamshire and/ or Great Nottingham Urban Area (studying at Uni DOES count) and/or were born/ brought up here (whilst now living somewhere else e.g. you are at Uni). You must proclaim Notts as your hometown on all social media (we will check), you are allowed to state more than one place e.g. Notts and London.
ALL GENRES – to ensure we live our Third Commandment and represent a diversity of genres at least two of the twelve semi-finalists will be urban artists (definition of urban = would be played on Radio 1Xtra, Chairman makes this judgement call)
WHO CANNOT ENTER? –
Group One -Those who have won/ headlined any previous NUSIC or NOTTS UNSIGNED competitons. For the avoidance of doubt this means KAPPA GAMMA, KAGOULE, THE MONEY, LONG DEAD SIGNAL, DOG IS DEAD, FRONTIERS and THE TURF. Previous runners-up and finalists can enter.
Group Two – Any artist already on the bill for this year’s Splendour.
Group Three – Musicians who are unable to perform at least three original tracks live. To clarify the minimum requirement for playing live is a live vocal, singing over a backing cd, Ableton etc is fine.
Group Four – Artists who only play covers, no covers are allowed to be entered or performed, FSN is all about encouraging original song writing.
ENSURING NEW TALENT GETS A CHANCE – No more than six artists who have already played Splendour can make it through to the Semi-Finals.
JUDGES – For Round One the judges are Andy Wells {Marketing Manager at DHP – Owners of Splendour}, Paul K (LeftLion Music Editor), Mike Atkinson (Freelance Music Journalist and man behind ‘the’ Guardian article) and Mike Uwins (Confetti ICT).
JUDGING PROCESS – Each judge will mark each act of ten twice. The first mark will be for ‘raw talent’ as perceived by them. The second mark will be for ‘ability to nail it playing the main stage at Splendour’ as perceived by them. Scores from the judge giving the highest score will be excluded (explained below). The other three Judges will have their scores all added together giving each act a final mark out of 60. The top eleven (subject to the criteria outlined above) acts will go through to Round Two (public vote). The twelth act will be the SPREADTHELOVE winner.
WHY DO YOU EXCLUDE THE HIGHEST SCORE? – It’s about ensuring independence and fairness. We want our judging process to be impartial and independent, striving for that over time we have realised its IMPOSSIBLE to put together a judging panel of individuals with knowledge of the Nottingham Music scene who do not have connections with musicians in that scene, everyone has their favourites. By excluding the top vote you make sure any ‘freak’ 10 out of 10 given to the act who features one of the judge’s nieghbour’s sons does not bias the result.
CAN PEOPLE WHO WORK WITH/ FOR YOU ENTER? – After some thought on this one, yes. We have a large number of volunteers from the Nottinghamshire scene who help and support us, many are musicians themselves. Not letting them enter would effectively ‘punish’ them for helping out.
CAN PEOPLE WHO KNOW THE JUDGES ENTER? – Yes, and that’s why we exlude the top vote to prevent any bias (see above).
OK HOW DO YOU ENSURE NO BIAS? – By trying our best. Three points to the answer. None of us (those of us working on Nusic on a day to day basis) will be judges, in fact all our judges are high profile members of the local scene who work elsewhere. Secondly, any acts who have specific links with us and make it through to the semi-finals we will declare so everything is transparent. Thirdly our cunning judging mechanic explained above.
The final twelve will be announced on Mon 16th April via the New Music Podcast. Their decision is final, by entering the competition you agree to accept this and all the above.
We will not publish the specific scores for all artists for two reasons:
1) We want the judges to be able to score honestly and not worry about getting grief when musicians see the scores they gave them.
2) We don’t want to discourage people, if you see you came last with 3 points out of 60 that’s not very encouraging, and we’re all about encouraging.
ROUND TWO – THE PUBLIC VOTE
In contrast to Round One which was an expert Judges vote, Round Two is totally open to the public. We wanted to mix things up, an expert vote ensures new talent yet to build a fanbase get a chance (as well as solo artists who often miss out in public votes simply due to there being less of them in the ‘musical entity’), a public vote ensures local musicians who have been good enough to build a fanbase get to acknowledge that, additionally as the public vote happens during round two members of the public get the chance to experience all the Semi-Finalists via the NEW MUSIC PODCAST and also our live semi-finals in MARKET SQUARE!
The public vote is open from 11pm Tuesday 17th April through to 11.59pm Wednesday 25th April (2012). It will be an ‘open’ vote (in that you can see who is winning) until 11.59pm Monday 16th April. At this point we intend to (technology allowing) make the vote private, this will build some tension and drive audience to the
NEW MUSIC PODCAST (giving more exposure to more musicians) where we will announce the results exclusively 10am Monday 30th April 2012.
You can vote for who you want to see go on to play Splendour TBC.
Re the earlier point re solo artists. A new rule for 2012 is that at least two solo artists must make the final six. If six bands (definition = non session musician featuring musical combos of three or more) take the top six places in the public vote then the 5th and 6th place band will be replaced by the highest placed solo artists.
You will have the chance to see all the Semi-Finalists live in the FUTURE SOUND OF NOTTINGHAM Semi-Finals on April 21st and 22nd in the Market Square. The facebook event (which we’ve kinda ballsed up on) is TBC.
Any artists swearing and/ or over-running will be disqualified.
ROUND THREE – THE FINAL
TBC.
