Claire DuMont
Online Sports Editor
The community came together to hear, appreciate, and celebrate the talents of the South Bay in the exciting and moving South Bay Teen Idol Vocal Contest.
Freedom4U and Hitchcock Automotive Resources hosted the second annual South Bay Teen Idol Vocal Contest at the Hermosa Beach Community Center and excited with an exciting atmosphere and talented contestants, however disappointed with frequent technical difficulties.
The South Bay Teen Idol Vocal Contest was open to all teenagers from ages 13-18 living in the South Bay area. All contestants had to submit a video audition before competing. The winners were decided by a panel of three judges in the field. The first, second, and third place winners won prizes of $500, $250, and $100, respectively.
Held at the Hermosa Beach Playhouse theatre, the event resonated a community feel and atmosphere. The event had a large turnout and the small theatre was full of parents, siblings and friends of the contestants. To view the contest, tickets at the door were $15 and attendees were able to purchase presale tickets.
With experienced and successful judges, the event was credible and legitimate. The judges were accomplished vocalist Jesse Palter, voice-over artist Ashton Smith and model Kirsten Poulin. Because the judges were experienced in the fields of the contest, they were able to give constructive and believable criticisms to the contestants, based on their own experience.
Each act was introduced with the name, age, school and grade level of the performer, as well as why they chose the song that they performed. In many cases, the song background provided an emotional attachment to the song. This allowed the performance to emotionally move the audience and help them to better understand the performer.
Technical difficulties disrupted the flow of the event, with frequent stops. Microphone placement prevented the audience and the judges from clearly hearing the performer, and caused some acts to have to restart. The frequencies of the difficulties led to annoyance from the contestants in the acts and the audience, the contest was unable to run smoothly and quickly due to these difficulties.
After each act, the judges gave on-stage comments, in the style of “American Idol.” These comments, while constructive and helpful, were repetitive as the event went on. The judges only commented on certain aspects of a performance for most of the acts. This caused the contest to become redundant as each act seemed the same.
The performers were limited to one minute for their act, possibly due to time constraints, as there was a total of 31 acts in the contest. While the time constraint is understandable, unfortunately it only gave the audience a small amount of time to enjoy and appreciate each act and talent. It left the audience wanting to hear more from each performer to fully form an opinion.
In addition to the cash prizes awarded, the first place winner was awarded an expenses paid entry into the IPOP talent convention to meet with agents and managers. This provided a valuable incentive for the performers, as well as an opportunity for them to improve their talents.
The South Bay Teen Idol Vocal Contest was lacking in repetitive judge comments and technical infrequencies, however shined with a community atmosphere and talented performers.
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