FSN 2018 – Nusic.org.uk

—————— FUTURE SOUND OF NOTTINGHAM 2018 ————————–

Information on the 2018 Future Sound of Nottingham will first be announced (as always) on the Nusic New Music Podcast.

Followed by announcements on our social media – FeelTheNusic on facebook, twitter and youtube.

YOUR #FSN2018 CHAMPS ARE THE DANDYLIONS. LISTEN TO THEIR INTERVIEW ON THE NEW MUSIC PODCAST HERE.

TIMELINE SO FAR

– 18/06/18 – The #FSN2018 Industry Professional Final Panel, has been announced via the New Music Podcast.

– 04/06/18 – The #FSN2018 Finalists have been announced via the New Music Podcast.

– 21/05/18 – The #FSN2018 Semi-Finalists have been announced via the New Music Podcast.

– 07/05/18 – The Round One Industry Professionals have been revealed via the New Music Podcast.

– 23/04/18 – Round One of #FSN2018 has been opened via the New Music Podcast.

– 09/04/18 – The Final date has been announced via the New Music Podcast.

#FSN2018

ROCK CITY FINAL (1ST JULY 2018) – RULES

FSN aspires to create for Notts musicians the opportunity to play in front of large audiences, on iconic stages, in front of Industry Professionals that can help them.

The voting process is quite complicated, there is method in the apparent madness though! Every rule is about trying to create as epic an experience as possible for the musicians taking part, hopefully the best gig of their lives, one that might even change their lives.

It’s a mixed voting system, between audience vote and a ‘Industry Professionals Panel’ 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 vibrant gig for the musicians. We appreciate there is a risk we simply end up pissing off everybody.

HAVING THE INDUSTRY PROFESSIONAL PANEL:

– Addresses the natural numerical advantage of bands with audience 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 well connected, Industry Professionals, who can help your career. On the Nottingham level this panel is huge, pretty much every major player in Nottingham is represented {the one exception is Dean Jackson from the BBC, who prefers to stay neutral (as we do, so we empathise)}. This in itself is a big opportunity regardless of the result. For example in both 2013 and 2012 FSN artists have so impressed the Industry Professional representing Splendour, that they have booked them for Splendour even though they didn’t win (Sam Jones in 2013, Indiana in 2012). In 2014 two of the six finalists secured management from an Industry Professional, off the back of their performance. In 2015, one of the finalists secured management from an Industry Professional, off the back of their performance. In 2016 Lisa Hendricks played the FSN Final, in 2017 she was booked for Splendour by one of the FSN Industry Professionals.

Those experts are:

Revealed on THIS NEW MUSIC PODCAST.

Our primary brief is to curate a panel full of the Nottingham residents most able to help our finalists. We also seek to ensure demographic diversity too. Our brief is to find:

– Individuals who have a significant audience (which we define as thousands to tens of thousands) plus the freedom to give exposure to local musicians.

– Individuals with significant professional music industry connections, such that could lead to high profile gigs or even management/ label introductions.

– The majority of our Industry Professionals will have both.

AUDIENCE VOTE:

– Helps mobilise your fans. Knowing they can make a difference encourages friends, family and fans to come down and support, in the process creating a vibey crowd and better atmosphere for all artists. That’s really key, it’s a better vibe for everyone.

– Ensures that talent talented enough to have built a following gets recognised. It is ironic when people moan, ‘they only won because they have more fans than us’, why do they have fans? A significant following implies you’re creating music that is connecting with people. Our ‘no covers’ policy ensures good looks and the ability to play someone else’s three chord hit is not enough.

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 (from the same location). The thinking:

– A decibel-o-meter on the stage encourages the crowd to come to the front and get boisterous, not awkwardly stand quietly at the back like a school disco, creating a better atmosphere for all.

– Taking three ‘audience votes’ throughout the night ensures fans of all artists are encouraged to watch all artists 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 artists not worrying about being seen as ‘unfaithful’! Creating a better atmosphere for all.

We will announce these audience vote moments on stage, we will then read out each artist name and precisely measure the noise from the crowd for each artist. This will be done near the start at 7pm, near the last artist and one time at random.

The Industry Professionals will be marking you out of ten on these criteria:

– Stage Presence – swagger, presence, engagement with audience.

– Raw Talent – as perceived by the individual Industry Professional.

– Quality of Performance – in time, in tune, hitting notes etc

– Quality of Songs – as perceived by the individual Industry Professional.

– Splendour Suitability – would you ‘work’ opening the main stage?

Eight Industry Professionals scoring you out of 50, the top score and bottom score will be removed, the remaining six will form a score out of 300. We remove the top and bottom 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 it’s IMPOSSIBLE to put together a 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 panel’s neighbour’s sons girlfriends does not bias the result. By excluding the bottom vote you make sure any ‘freak’ 0 out of 50 given to the act who features the bully of one of the panel’s kids, does not bias the result.

Each of the three ‘audience votes’ will be out of 50, scores will be allocated like this:

– Highest Db – 50
– 2nd – 45
– 3rd – 40
– 4th – 35
– 5th – 30
– 6th – 25

After three votes we will have a second score out of 150 giving each artist an overall score out of 450. Needless to say the highest score out of 450 wins that main stage slot at Splendour.

Complicated yes, but all aimed at creating the best possible atmosphere for all, as well as seeking a winning artist talented enough to win the love of the Industry Professionals’ and the people.

Should there be a tie, the artist with the highest overall ‘Splendour Suitability’ score from the panel, becomes the FSN Champ. Should scores still be tied, the Splendour representative on the Industry Professionals panel, will cast the deciding vote.

FINALLY… Performance rules:

– Be nice.

– Sets must be no longer than 15 minutes.

– Sets may comprise no more than 4 songs. This is a slight change for 2018 (it used to be 3). Sets must still be no longer than 15 minutes, and this rule will be strictly enforced.

– No covers. We roll with the Wikipedia definition: “a new performance or recording of a previously recorded, commercially released song by someone other than the original artist or composer.”

– You can swear if you wanna, but it probably ain’t gonna help your ‘Splendour Suitability’ score.

– Samples must not be so long they sound like covers, our broad rule of thumb is that a sample longer than four bars starts to raise eyebrows, longer than eight bars and we may well feel unable to allow it. Obviously the sample can be looped ad infinitum. Official Hip-Hop term that.

If in doubt Chair of Judges Jackie P and Nusic Founder Mark Del will make Final judgement call, where clarity is lacking due to no precise rule currently relating to the precise matter arising, decision will be made in the context of this question, “does this align with the spirit of FSN?”

For context a reminder of that spirit – to create for Notts musicians the opportunity to play in front of large audiences, on iconic stages, in front of Industry Professionals that can help them.

Oh.

And be nice.

PRE FINAL PROMOTION

We try hard to secure as many unique promo opportunities as possible for the finalists, in fact it’s one of the big ‘music helping’ features of FSN – musicians get a big boost in profile from all the promo that comes with making the Final. We treat all artists equally and offer all opportunities to all artists, whether they take up those opportunities or not is obvs up to them. In other words any significant differences you observe in artist promo levels will be down to the artists’ level of proactivity and / or their strategy, some artists don’t like doing promo, they don’t feel it’s part of their brand.

The other ‘extenuating circumstance’ is musicians from parts of Notts that have their own ultra local media outlets, places like Mansfield that have their own paper and radio station. Artists from those areas may secure extra promo from their ‘home support’, student musicians may secure support from student media etc.

SEMI FINAL (ROUND TWO) RULES – THE PUBLIC VOTE

BREAKING NEWS: This years voting process is two-step. For more details, please see ‘THE NEW VOTING SYSTEM’ section below.

In contrast to Round One which was an Industry Professionals expert panel, the Semi-Finals are a public vote. We deliberately mix things up, an expert vote ensures new talent (that’s really good) yet to build a fanbase gets 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 the public vote is accompanied by a dedicated version of the NEW MUSIC PODCAST offering the public an easy way to hear all the Semi-Finalists.

The public vote is open from 11pm Monday 21st May through to 11.59pm Wednesday 30th May. It will be an ‘open’ vote (in that you can see who is winning) until 11.59pm Tuesday 29th May. At this point, we intend to (technology allowing) make the vote private, this will drive the audience to the NEW MUSIC PODCAST (giving more exposure, to more musicians) where we will announce the results exclusively on Monday 4th June.

Re our musical inclusivity rules:

– Solo artists. At least two solo artists must make the Final six. This would normally mean if four bands (definition = non-session musician featuring musical combos of two or more) take the top four places in the public vote then the 3rd and 4th place bands will be replaced by the highest placed solo artists.

But.

The Indi Rule means two artists are already in the Final, and this year one of them (EMILY MAKIS) is a solo artist (as defined below). Therefore the twelve artists in the Semi-Final vote will be competing for four places, one of which will go to the highest scored solo artist.

Our definition of a band (above) does allow for solo artists who are not playing solo. An act with more than one person playing on stage that is named after the lead singer (who writes their songs without contribution from any session musicians they play with), and in which the other musicians are effectively session musicians (and so are significantly less motivated to put the effort in to secure a Final place), is deemed a solo act. We’ll be direct with you, this is probably the trickiest grey area to address in the whole of FSN. Over the years we have found this definition to be the best compromise, we know it’s not perfect.

– Musical Diversity. Our musical diversity rules (which you can read about in full in the Round One rules) have proved effective in ensuring genres such as “Hip-Hop, Grime, Soul, Reggae, World, (any form of) Electronic Music plus any genre related to these six musical families” made it into the Final. Two Electronic music artists made it into the Final (EMILY MAKIS and WOLF CLUB), an additional four artists from the targeted genres made it into the Round Two Public Vote, again of their own right, with no need for the musical diversity rule.

Re our ‘new talent gets the opportunity’ rules:

– Previous FSN Finalists – We only allow a maximum of two previous FSN finalists through to the Final. This year, there are two artists that have played the FSN Final before – ROE GREEN and THE DANDYLIONS in the Semi-Finals. So this is not an issue. If they did both come in the top four places, they would go through to the Final.

And then there is the grey area of KOMINO (whose frontman is ANGELO PANZERA who was the frontman of LOOPHOLE PROJECT who played in 2013), and PRETTY BABS (whose frontman is SAM JONES who played solo in 2013). As this was more than four years ago, they are not affected by this rule. Please see the ‘Grey Areas’ section in the Round One rules for more info on this and the four year criteria.

– RE: “No more than six artists who have already played Splendour (in previous years) can make it through to the Semi-Finals. “ – One artist in this year’s Semi-Final has played Splendour before – ‘PRETTY BABS’ frontman, in 2013, as a solo artist. So this is not an issue.

TRANSPARENCY DECLARATIONS

– KOMINO frontman ANGELO PANZERA is a previous Nusic intern.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

As of May 2018 no one in the Nusic team has a potential FSN Conflict of Interest, with the following exceptions / clarifications:

Part time Nusic Editor Sam Nahirny manages HASHTAGOBI, meaning Hashtag may not enter the Future Sound of Nottingham.
Part time Nusic Editor Sam Nahirny is a professional music photographer, having photographed world famous artists such as J Cole, Wolf Alice and Sigma. Sam offers a discounted service to Nottingham musicians which means he has photographed over 20 Notts musicians. Only one that he has worked with has made it into the fourteen. That artist is KOMINO.
Part time Nusic Events Human Greg Lonsdale manages a professional (as in makes a full time living from) musician ROB GREEN, as a professional musician Rob would not enter FSN and so there is no potential CoI.

THE NEW VOTING SYSTEM

With the help of Leftlion’s IT genuis Al, we have continued our attempts to make the voting system as rigorous as possible. And this year we have made a bit of a breakthrough.

In 2018 we have made it a two-step system.

This means voters will need both a working email AND a UK phone number. Similar to if you have two-step authentication on your Gmail / Facebook etc.

We have done this to make it as hard to cheat as possible.

Three ways people try to cheat…

‘People who already have several real email addresses of their own’- humans, who through their different workplaces / creative endeavours, have multiple email accounts. Who end up casting multiple votes, even though it is just one person.
‘Hard labour cheating’ – Humans spending time setting up new emails over and over again (hotmail etc), so they can cast extra votes. Again, even though it is just one person.
Errr, ‘dark web’ cheating – Humans bulk buying email addresses or quite literally buying the service of someone casting the vote on their behalf.

The two-step process makes all three of these methods significantly more difficult to do (we wanna say impossible, but we’re trying to be realistic). As even though lots of peeps have multiple emails, and / or can be bothered to set up multiple new emails, setting up multiple UK phone numbers requires a lot more resource.

So, whilst it does take approx 37 seconds longer to vote, we hope it’s all worth it. This should ensure a just result. And a fairer experience for all the artists. Thank you to Al from Leftlion for all his help making this happen. x

ROUND ONE RULES – #FSN2018

ALL #FSN2018 ENTRIES SUCCESSFULLY SUBMITTED ARE LISTED HERE.

FOR TOP TIPS ON ENTERING #FSN2018, WATCH THIS.

HOW TO ENTER FSN2018

– Pick your strongest, most appropriate, original track (no covers) and email it to us, one track only, along with confirmation of your ‘Nottingham-ness’ and that you are available to play on July 1st (Rock City Final) & July 21st (Splendour).

– For full rules PLUS definition of NottinghamNESS look below at the rules. As Nusic is all about raw talent, we accept YouTube and SoundCloud links if you do not have studio recordings yet. But if you do have studio recordings, send us those.

– Email that MP3 or YT / SC link with Subject Title “FSN ENTRY”, confirmation of availability, your NotinghamNESS plus contact details, to the email address nusic@leftlion.co.uk

Do the above before 11.59pm on Monday 14th May 2018.

YOU MUST BE FROM NOTTS – See FAQ19 to see what qualifies as Notts in our #NusicFAQs: nusic.org.uk/faq

ALL INCLUSIVE – To encourage all musical genres and musical combinations to seize this opportunity, we have a number of rules that aspire to encourage a diversity of participants in FSN that reflects both the incredible musical diversity across Nottinghamshire as well as our own founding principle about supporting all genres. FSN is not just about bands, as awesome as the bands of Notts are. So:

We have a rule to ensure solo artists are not disadvantaged.
We have a rule to make FSN accessible to electronic artists, rappers and MCs (in other words, musicians who often perform purely with pre-recorded backing).
We have two rules to ensure artists performing Hip-Hop, Grime, Soul, Reggae, World, (any form of) Electronic Music plus any genre related to these six musical families, from whom we classically have less entries (proportionally), are encouraged to seize this opportunity.

Details on these rules below.

SOLO ARTISTS

There is no potential disadvantage for a solo artist in Round One, the rule to ensure solo artists are not disadvantaged in FSN, kicks in at the Semi Final (Round Two) stage. This will be clarified when the Semi-Final (Round Two) rules are announced, and will take a similar form as the last three years.

ACCESSIBILITY

The minimum requirement for playing live is a live vocal, singing over a backing cd, Ableton etc.

MUSICAL DIVERSITY

At least two of the twelve Semi-Finalists will be artists who perform Hip-Hop, Grime, Soul, Reggae, World, (any form of) Electronic Music plus any genre related to these six musical families. This (we acknowledge subjective) judgement call on which artists qualify will be made by Judging Chairwoman Jackie P from Kemet FM and Nusic Founder Mark Del. Their frame of reference is ‘Would this song be played on Kemet FM and/or BBC 1Xtra?’. This rule is not perfect, but it comes from a good place, aspiring to make sure FSN is open to all genres.
Strictly speaking this is a Semi Final (Round Two) rule but we thought you should know upfront… At least one of the six Finalists will be an artist who performs Hip-Hop, Grime, Soul, Reggae, World, (any form of) Electronic Music plus any genre related to these six musical families. This (we acknowledge subjective) judgement call on which artists qualify will be made by Judging Chairwoman Jackie P from Kemet FM and Nusic Founder Mark Del. This rule is not perfect, but it comes from a good place, to make sure the FSN Final embraces all genres.

RAW TALENT – We have three rules to ensure raw talent is recognised, to ensure that FSN recognises stand out raw talent and to ensure that FSN does not end up featuring purely artists who have already had the opportunity of playing either Splendour or the FSN Final.

Details on these rules below.

ENSURING NEW TALENT GETS THE OPPORTUNITY:

No more than six artists who have already played Splendour (in previous years) can make it through to the Semi-Finals. This means that should the Industry Professional Judges (who vote ‘blind’) vote through seven acts who it turns out have played Splendour before, the seventh act would not make it through.
No more than two artists who have already played the Rock City FSN Final can make it through to the Finals.
Across the three rounds of FSN we try and mix democracy (public votes) with expertise (Industry Professional Judges votes), we feel this has worked quite well since 2009, for example the FSN2012 winners THE AFTERDARK MOVEMENT were in the top two in all three rounds. But we are always trying to make it better. In 2012 we also had an extreme case, an incredible raw talent who’d never done a single gig in their life entered FSN and rightly (as shown by their subsequent success) won Round One (the Industry Professional Judges vote) by a mile, the largest points victory ever in fact. Despite their clear stand out talent they did not get through Round Two, they were so new they had no following yet and not enough neutral voters took part to see them through. As Nusic is all about uncovering new talent we were frustrated that FSN was not able to ‘cope’ with such an extreme scenario (by extreme we mean so good whilst simultaneously so unknown, thereby winning Round One but totally out of it in Round Two), so we brought in a new rule in 2013, which we extended in 2014. The top two in the Round One expert vote will get automatic byes through to the Final.

WHO CANNOT ENTER? –

Group One -Those who have won / headlined any previous NUSIC or NOTTS UNSIGNED ‘musician helping events’. For the avoidance of doubt this means BROTHERHOOD, SUPER FURNITURE, SUSPECT ALIBI, JOY MUMFORD, THE GORGEOUS CHANS, THE AFTERDARK MOVEMENT, 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 Nottingham artist ALREADY announced 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.
Group Four – Artists who only play covers, no covers are allowed to be entered or performed, FSN (and Nusic generally) is all about encouraging original song writing.

Grey Area/s – What if you are a new act that includes members who used to be in one of the artists listed in ‘Group One’? This is where it gets reeaaalllll complicated. It wouldn’t be fair to have pretty much the same artist get to play that main stage again would it? But also it wouldn’t be fair for a band of six to be excluded because one of them played triangle as a session musician back in 2011 for THE MONEY. So. If your new act contains the same humans as before, you cannot enter. If your new act has two or more members of an act listed in ‘Group One’ it must be at least four years since your old act got through. If you are the only member of a ‘Group One’ act, in your new act, and there are at least three of you in total, you may enter now. Unless you are the lead singer / front person, in which case again it must be four years since your ‘Group One’ act made it. Sorry singers, but you are the key distinguisher of any act. Sometimes there are downsides to being the star, but hey, you get all the groupies. We also use these distinctions to help us clarify the FSN semi-finalists rule of “No more than two artists who have already played the Rock City FSN Final can make it through to the Finals”.

INDUSTRY PROFESSIONAL JUDGES – Will be announced Monday 7th May via the New Music Podcast. As always we will put together a panel of the most ‘able-to-help’ industry peeps we can find in Nottingham, this means whether or not you ‘win’ you get your music heard by people who can help you. Our main concern with the panel is filling it with people who can help you.

INDUSTRY PROFESSIONAL JUDGING PROCESS – Each judge will twice mark each act out of ten, after listening to one track from each artist without knowing who the artist is. The first mark will be for ‘raw talent’ as perceived by that individual judge. The second mark will be for ‘Splendour main stage suitability’ as perceived by that individual judge. Scores from the judge giving the highest score will be excluded (explained below), as of 2015 the lowest score is also excluded. The other three judges (as there will now be five in total) will have their scores all added together giving each act a final mark out of 60. The top two (subject to the criteria outlined above and below) acts will go straight through to the FSN Final at Rock City (see raw talent rules above), the next ten acts go through to Semi-Finals (Public Vote). The 11th and 12th acts in the Semi-Final Public Vote will be the Nottingham Music Hub and Inspire Youth Arts artists (entities we collaborate with to support young musicians in their first year or two of playing live).

WHO ARE THE INDUSTRY PROFESSIONAL JUDGES? – Listen to the New Music Podcast on 7th May to find out.

Our brief is to curate a judging panel full of the Nottingham residents most able to help the musicians entering FSN, ‘ability to help’ is the defining factor in our judge selections. We define that as:

– Individuals who have a significant audience (which we define as thousands to tens of thousands) plus the freedom to give exposure to local musicians.

– Individuals with significant professional music industry connections, such that could lead to high profile gigs or event management/ label introductions.

– The majority of our Industry Profesisonal Judges will have both.

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 intrinsically 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 ‘neighbour’s son’s best friend’s girlfriend’ does not bias the result. This score will only be used if there is a tie.

WHY DO YOU EXCLUDE THE LOWEST SCORE? – This was a new idea in 2015, and it worked well, it is about our continued efforts to ensure independence and fairness. We want our judging process to be impartial and independent, striving for that over time we have realised its intrinsically 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 AND their biases. By excluding the bottom vote as well as the top vote you make sure any ‘freak’ 0 out of 10 scores given to an act who features the kid from school who used to bully the judge’s son, that makes music in a genre that a particular judge absolutely hates etc does not bias the result. Since 2015, we have had a fifth judge to ensure we have three ‘valid’ votes for each artist. There is also impact simply by virtue of having this rule re lowest score and the rule re highest score, as judges now know there is no point giving a ridiculously low or high score, hopefully the mere existence of the rule makes judges score more fairly and accurately.

I’M CONFUSED NOW! CAN YOU SUM THAT UP BRIEFLY PLS? – Well as you asked so nicely. Five Industry Professional Judges. Top judge score excluded to prevent bias. Bottom judge score excluded to prevent bias. Remaining three judge scores make the traditional Round One score out of sixty.

CAN PEOPLE WHO WORK WITH/ FOR YOU ENTER? – After some thought on this one, yes, ish. We have a large number of volunteers from the Nottinghamshire scene who help and support us in helping you, many are musicians themselves. Not letting them enter would effectively ‘punish’ them for helping out. We will declare any potential internal conflicts of interest so that things are transparent. It’s worth remembering that none of the Nusic team vote. Any current volunteer from the Nusic team who enters FSN will be asked to take time out from Nusic for the duration of their time in FSN.

Anywho who actually works for Nusic, can not enter FSN.

2018 FSN Transparency Declarations (This will be updated weekly) =

No artists have yet entered this year, that are related, living with or in love with current members of the Nusic Team.
Any Nusic volunteers linked to FSN entries will be ‘firewalled’ from the judging process.
Any Nusic volunteer entering FSN will be asked to stand down from Nusic for the duration of FSN.

CAN PEOPLE WHO KNOW THE JUDGES ENTER? – Yes, and that’s why we exclude the top vote to prevent any bias (see above).

OK HOW DO YOU ENSURE NO BIAS? – By trying our best. Three specific 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 music and/ or media professionals connected to Nottingham, who work elsewhere. Secondly, any acts who have specific links with us and make it through to the Semi-Finals (Round Two) we will declare so everything is transparent. Thirdly our cunning judging mechanics explained above.

CLARIFY YOUR DEFINITION/S OF ‘NOTTINGHAMNESS’ PLEASE? – Check FAQ19 in our #NusicFAQs: nusic.org.uk/faq

The ‘Semi-Final twelve’ will be announced on Monday 21st May via the New Music Podcast. The judges decision is final, by entering #FSN2018 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 Industry Professional 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.

That’s it, keep listening to the New Music Podcast for the latest!

Have we mentioned you need to listen to the New Music Podcast?

#FSN2018