SONGKONTEST is coming to London with the date set at 17 August 2025. With enough interested parties, organisation can move forward.

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Below, the format and rules of the contest are outlined:

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Songs and performers

We aim to have 16 contestants performing one original, unreleased song each, ideally not performed in public before the night of the contest. This could be one from your archives which never got released or a new one written for the contest. Songs may be fully released from the day after the contest.

 

The contest is open to songs of all genres. Solo singers, rappers, duos, bands, one-off supergroups and featured acts are all welcomed.

 

Writers can choose to have someone else sing their song but all writers must be present at the contest. Entries may not sample existing songs. Collaborations are encouraged as well

 

Performances

To simplify setups and changeovers, no instruments may be played live. Instruments may be brought on stage but may not be plugged in, only mimed. All songs must have a backing track, submitted to the organiser one week before the contest, which is no longer than 3 minutes and 10 seconds. Lead vocals must be performed live (and songs must include lead vocals) but backing tracks may include some backing vocals. Dancing is encouraged but not necessary. Artists may provide a backing image or video to be projected onto the wall behind them to accompany their song.

 

To ensure audience members are reasonably able to listen to all songs, performers will be grouped into 3 or 4 blocks with a break for refreshments between each block. If technical difficulties or exceptional circumstances interfere with a performance, the performer will be offered the chance to perform again at the end of the current block.

 

Voting, scoring and winning

(In summary, artists and audience award points to their top 3 songs, focusing on "the best song" rather than "the best singer". The split of points from artists and audience is roughly 50-50).

The winner will be determined by a 2-stage voting system. After all songs have been performed, the performers will be given the chance to perform up to 15 seconds of their song a capella to act as a recap before the audience voting period begins.

 

All audience members who arrive before the first song is performed will receive a voting slip as they come in. This ensures that only people who have heard all entries may vote. On their voting slip, each audience member will list what they felt to be the best song, second-best song and third-best song, awarding 5 points, 3 points and 1 point. This is a secret ballot and these slips are placed into a box. An interval act plays while these votes are counted by the host, sponsor and a neutral party outside the main room. 

 

Voters will be briefed that they are voting for what they believe to be the best song; not the best singer, not the one which most closely matches their tastes and they will be asked to suspend any personal biases they have towards any performers they personally know.

 

After the interval act, the artists will, one by one, announce the songs they rank as best, second-best and third-best. The number of points awarded by the artists are scaled so that the audience and artists will award roughly the same number of points.

 

Once artist voting is complete, the total votes awarded by the audience to each act are announced from the bottom of the scoreboard upwards. In similar song contests where this voting format is used, this produces a suspenseful and exciting show. Full tiebreakers exist to produce a definitive result, which will be explained before the vote reveal begins.

 

Once the winner is known, prizes will be given out and the winner will be invited to perform their song again to close the show.

 

Prizes

Communications are taking place with a potential sponsor to provide prizes for the winners (potentially top 3) in the form of time at a recording/rehearsal space - full details TBC once enough interest has been garnered. Trophies for the winning performer and writer will also be produced.