Ok so we uncovered some corruption in a music contest which was blatantly apparent when the Top 12 of the competition to go through to the semi's were in fact not actually the top 12 according to the judging panel this week. I don't believe they were expecting anyone to keep a score card, but alas there were actually people who did, which is pretty rad.

Now let me explain to you what happened here, the night before the actual announcement of the top 12, apparently they announced on radio and facebook that sms's would now be used to choose the top 12 bands, without a prior notification to any of the bands to inform their fans to get cracking and to send as many sms's as they can to the number supplied. now before the top 12 were announced it looked a little something like this:

Hotel Iris - 8.46
Ballistic blues: 8.39
Tobacco vampire: 8.35
2 Minute Puzzle 8.29
Cherry vinyl: 8.28
Snare van die Suburbs 8.25
Scarlequin 8.25
Sixgun Gospel 8.17
Inside Job - 8.14
Crimson House 8.1
Naked Sushi 7.86
Down On The First 7.78
Silent side: 7.78
Thank You Johnny - 7.75
Parlor Vinyls 7.6
Tripjas 7.53
Wikus de lange: 7.5
Dutch Phobia 7.5
De Wallen 7.46
Beautifull Loosers 7.39
Very Ape 7.32
Suiderbees 7.25
Series of Events 7.25
Young folks: 7.17
With Dawn 7.17
In The Deep End 7.14
Johnny Feel Good 7
Beeldenstorm 7
Fax Police - 6.67
Soldier 6.67

When it was announced it looked something like this:

1 Hotel Iris
2 Ballistic Blues
3 Tobacco Vampire
4 Two Minute Puzzle
5 Cherry Vinyl
6 Scarlequin
7 Snare van die Suburbs
8 The inside Job
9 Crimson House Blues
10 Tripjas
11 Silent Side
12 Thank you Johnny

Not the same, so i posted and said why the change?? and then saw an anouncement on facebook saying sms's would now be used to sort out the top 12, this was posted after 19:00 in the evening. now you would think that a simple email would be sent to the bands to inform them of this change would be an apropriate procedure, not a facebook post. after the announcement of the top 12 bands were made it was clear that something was up as we can all see the two list do not match up. I called one of the judges as we had his number saved from a previouse disussion with him regarding the contest, and asked him to explain. He said to me that they changed the stretegy from the scores to sms's..... i asked why and he explained the scores were to tight to determine the top 12 and they were under pressure to release the names from the new venue which would hold the semi's, i also asked why non of the bands were informed of this change with which he replied thatthere was no time and it was a decision from four of them, in which i replied it would take them 5 min to type an email informingus all of the rule change, i also happened to ask him if it was a fair decision which they made, in which he replied "no, but it was a group decision".
Now this is the funny part, a few hours later they post on their facebook wall that the SMS system was not used as it would have been unfair to the contestants and they just happened to have announced it for interest sakes. huh???????
So now what the hell is going on here then, i post some comments and some questions regarding this matter which they are now refusing to answer, some simple questions like "why they announced the sms vote change if it would not be implemented?" another question raised was "if it was not implemented how did they come up with this top 12 result which differs from the actual results?"

Am i the only one who is seeing wrong here?
i am still awaiting some answers, its been a couple of days now cause i am stumped, i can only imagine that there may be some deep seeded issues at work here, afterall R100 000 worth or prizes is alot, isnt it?

The whole thing is still documented on their facebook page, if you don't believe me.

So basically they bumped Naked Sushi, Down On The First and Sixgun Gospel in favour of Tripjas, Silent Side and Thank you Johnny?

You don't mention who the organisers are or link.

What were the rules on how they would judge? Based on popularity only or did the judges have a say too?

Yes, there are always controversy with "battle of the bands"- or talent contests.
I have personal experience of this. In the late 60's two excellent bands were sacrificed in the semis so that a singer and his (very much below average) band could compete in the finals of a very popular "battle of the bands" contest. They did not win eventually but the singer got a contract with Polydor as a solo artist and released about 3 singles....one of which reached no1 in SA. He is currently...guess what..?.....yes ?...a gospel singer. :?

We also entered into this competition.... We failed on the night and dissapointed ourselves... But it was advertised that you could vote, and that if you had enough people smsing your bands name you could go through. Sms's were charged @ R1.50, and so ofcourse we got MANY people to vote for us so that maybe we could still go through in that way.

Then after al the smsing, they said that that they did not go according to sms's and that the venue they scheduled for the semi's were rushing them due to advertising reasons, so 4 judges came together and chose the top 12 bands they thought should go through.

I'm not a sore loser, honoustly. I'm the first to admit we were dissapointing, and probably did not deserve to go through, but hey... Don't advertise one thing and then do something completely different. It's unfair towards ALL the bands involved, and also quite embarrasing...

I wrote into a song-writing competition during July (still not over by the way) it was however judged by facebook 'likes'....so this competition isn't about the song at all really but about how many of your fb buddies you can get to vote...I have 260 fb buddies and 84 votes, might be time to clean house... ?

Been there, done that. Always rigged. Might be a management company creating a platform to launch their artists.

If it's R100,000 in prizes, might be worth a lawyer's letter. Scare them into using the system agreed to when you signed up - unless there's an escape clause that allows the judges to ultimately decide how they like.

Yeah voting is a bugbear for me. Sometimes it will reflect how much people like your material. More often it will reflect how good you are at canvassing votes; including from people who've never heard your stuff. They should have a panel of independent judges award points. It's the only fair way.

Yup , got that t shirt..

For us it was about a battle to play a festival

Rules were clear and enforced for all except the band that won.. who incidentally broke virtually every rule.. it was obvious though they were chums with the organizers

Bugged us then, really don't care now..

...i'd be keen to see what the R100 000 prize is..........(i haven't seen any sponsors onboard)

Surely if they say sms votes (at R1.50) will determine the outcome, and then don't use the sms's to determine the outcome, that is theft?
Straight simple fraudulent theft.
That's like selling tickets for a raffle that doesn't exist.

I presume there were Ts & Cs and small print that were part and parcel of the entry. I'd expect that there was something along the lines of the organisers may change the rules at any time and it is up to the entrant to acquaint themselves with such changes as when they happen, and by submitting your entry you hereby agree to be bound by any updated rules for the entire duration of the contest.

If so, then you probably don't have a leg to stand on.

Frankly, if I were running such a competition I'd make sure there was some kind of CYA clause in there because there would be things that I could not directly control and so I might have to change things on the fly. I'd at least stipulate that the judges' decision is final and that there is no appeals process.

I don't buy the analogy with a raffle BTW. With a raffle (they used to be illegal in SA, there had to be some kind of test of skill or knowledge like "how many dogs do I have if I have five dogs"?) there is a promise that properly completed entries will go into a draw for a prize and so you may profit. There is no such implied promise in SMS voting, and in any event you'd have to prove that your R1.50 went to the organisers - or figure out exactly who got it so you know who to sue, and if you want to sue over a R1.50 SMS then your lawyer has a fool for a client.

When I see SMS voting going on my only thought is that I wish I'd bought stock in cell phone companies.

X-rated Bob wrote:I don't buy the analogy with a raffle BTW. With a raffle (they used to be illegal in SA, there had to be some kind of test of skill or knowledge like "how many dogs do I have if I have five dogs"?) there is a promise that properly completed entries will go into a draw for a prize and so you may profit. There is no such implied promise in SMS voting, and in any event you'd have to prove that your R1.50 went to the organisers - or figure out exactly who got it so you know who to sue, and if you want to sue over a R1.50 SMS then your lawyer has a fool for a client.

You're right that there is a fundamental difference between sms voting and a raffle but I do think that it should be illegal to charge R1.50 (or any amount) for an sms which purports to offer you something (a say in who wins) when in actual fact, it simply relieves you of money but offers you nothing. If I was a sms voter in this competitionI'd have been seriously miffed and I'd imagine the only reason the voters are not in revolt is because they've all been fleeced by only a small amount.

When you think about it, it must be the best strategy ever for daylight robbery. Everyone can see plainly you're robbing them, the amount is just so small that none of them feel their effort would be justified to seek any recourse.

deefstes wrote:

X-rated Bob wrote:I don't buy the analogy with a raffle BTW. With a raffle (they used to be illegal in SA, there had to be some kind of test of skill or knowledge like "how many dogs do I have if I have five dogs"?) there is a promise that properly completed entries will go into a draw for a prize and so you may profit. There is no such implied promise in SMS voting, and in any event you'd have to prove that your R1.50 went to the organisers - or figure out exactly who got it so you know who to sue, and if you want to sue over a R1.50 SMS then your lawyer has a fool for a client.

You're right that there is a fundamental difference between sms voting and a raffle but I do think that it should be illegal to charge R1.50 (or any amount) for an sms which purports to offer you something (a say in who wins) when in actual fact, it simply relieves you of money but offers you nothing. If I was a sms voter in this competitionI'd have been seriously miffed and I'd imagine the only reason the voters are not in revolt is because they've all been fleeced by only a small amount.

But you can see how that one would go: "Judges decision is final".

You always need that in case it turns out that Miss South Africa/Johannesburg/Pofadder is actually a Mrs, or that the novice band who were just voted the hottest new act of whatever turned out to have a recording contract they're keeping quiet about, or you find out very late in the day that one of the band has a prior for drunk driving and a very inappropriate tattoo.

And there'd be "force majeur" for the things that you can't control, like network problems resulting in delayed delivery on SMSes, or a database crashing.

Lots of ways to wiggle out of that one, and some of them may even be the truth!

When you think about it, it must be the best strategy ever for daylight robbery. Everyone can see plainly you're robbing them, the amount is just so small that none of them feel their effort would be justified to seek any recourse.

What was that stink with Idols a couple of years ago? They found several thousand uncounted SMSes after the initial announcement or something. They ended up having to override what everybody thought was the final vote and declare joint winners.

Is this the 48 band-off?

In which case they were still encouraging SMS voting this morning on the radio.

On facebook they said that sms voting for the finals closed Tuesday night @ 00:00..............
Idk, this just wasn't right from the start.

Needleshy, you were probably there during the meetings @ The Barnyard before the competition?
They said that bands who were interested in using they're Valve Amps instead of ther're own just had
to inform them and that they'd have two Fender Deluxe D'ville amps available to use.

We thought, that was great, seeing as it's much better than our personal amps.
So we informed them, and they said all would be there for us on the night.

We played the on the opening night, and there was only one amp. So we had to end up lending an amp from
one of the other bands. Then, to make matters worse, in the middle of the set, the D'ville amp died....

It went on/off continuously, which really messed up the whole night for me. I haven't said this before
because it's very easy to sound like a sore loser...

But at the end of the day, I just feel this was very poorly planned from the start...

Delta Male wrote: But at the end of the day, I just feel this was very poorly planned from the start...

And that's ultimately what it all comes to. Poor planning. In hindsight, I feel this is invaluable experience for all bands to go through crappy battle of the bands, I myself have had a good share. But in the end you must choose your 'battles' carefully and see if any competition is worth entering into or if it requires too much effort and nonsensical spamming of your fans. Music should never be about the spam, but about the music itself, alas, its not how the industry would view it.

and thats why you use your own amps. IF one breaks then you are accountable. Or bring yours and have it ready to switch in first sign of trouble.

MIKA the better one wrote: and thats why you use your own amps. IF one breaks then you are accountable. Or bring yours and have it ready to switch in first sign of trouble.

I agree 100%, lesson learned :yup:

No I think the real lesson is fighting for superiority is not the answer because if there is one winner the rest will be loosers, how can one personal expression be better than another? So some will obviously do anything to come out on top. But then trying to get us muso's with massive egos to cooperate with each other for the greater good is an uphill battle in its own, we'd rather go at each others throats. rant rant rant.