With most events canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we at IRCC needed to come up with an innovative virtual event in early 2021. That is how the Solo Singing Competition idea was born! Though the event was held in May 2021, planning months before that. With due consideration to the CDC and county safety guidelines, we wanted to host an event that not only achieved our mission but also maximized audience and participant reach across the United States.
The singing competition was a 4-day event, with live auditions held on May 8 and 9, 2021, semifinals on May 15, 2021 and finals on May 22, 2021.
Preparation and planning began in January. One of the first investments was the purchase of a Zoom subscription with extra storage, in order to allow us to test singing performances to karaoke tracks on a Zoom platform. Our IRCC Board members spent hours experimenting with different headsets and varied Zoom audio and video settings to ensure the best possible technical setup for our participants. We also had to practice and learn all about livestreaming from Zoom to YouTube and set up numerous livestreaming sessions on YouTube ahead of time. Since most of our participants had never been in a virtual singing competition before, we had to arrange for numerous training sessions and rehearsals to train our participants to ensure that the live show would be free of glitches. With 22 participants signing up for a schedule of training sessions, we had training sessions on multiple weeknights leading up to the auditions.
Publicity for the competition began in early February with social media posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp, and with email blasts to our distribution list. Several organizations also promoted the event with their memberships and clientele, such as Desh Videsh, Patel Brothers, wholesale printers and other non-profit associations. All events were promoted on our website as well.
For the competition itself, the enrollment period for contestants was from April 1-21, 2021. Registration forms were published online on our website where contestants were able to fill and submit their forms online. While the majority of participants were from South Florida, we were pleased to have some from other states. Selection of semifinalists, finalists and winners was planned to be done through a combination of judges’ choice and audience voting through text messages. 3 judges from South Florida were selected, all of whom were extremely qualified and had substantial experience in teaching Indian classical and modern music and/or singing to various students in a classroom and through online formats. From the initial pool of over 20 contestants, 10 semifinalists were announced on Monday, May 10, and 5 finalists were announced on Sunday, May 16. Winners of each stage were announced on social media and on our website. Each contestant performed 1 song each for the auditions and semifinals, and 2 songs each at the finals. A well-credentialed and trained guest singer was also appointed to perform an invocation at the beginning of each day of competitions.
As each of the 4 days of competition approached, a few days before, we needed to select the sequence of singers for each day. For the auditions, the sequence of singers was selected to have half the singers compete on May 8 and the remaining half on May 9. Again, IRCC was pleased to innovate in the process of sequence selection. Rather than merely picking numbers from a hat, we used an online format and selected the sequence of contestants by rolling an online wheel with the names listed on it. For complete transparency, this was broadcast live on YouTube.
Each of the 4 days of competition was held over Zoom, with the participants, Board members and judges attending the Zoom meeting and the meeting was live streamed on YouTube. Again, there was heavy social media promotion of the YouTube channel and also for each of the 4 events of the competition. Some of the Board members also doubled up as emcees and prepared heavily for the events, planning for technical difficulties and alternate ways to manage them. Even though our contestants had been trained prior to the auditions, an abbreviated training session was held prior to semifinals and finals to test the quality of their karaoke tracks and their voice quality over the microphones and zoom settings.
We were pleased to have special video appearances from Broward County Mayor Steven Geller and Commissioner Dale Holness at the semifinals and finals, with Commissioner Holness even dancing to the tune of an old Bollywood number!
Another innovative idea that we were able to implement was a series of random drawings from the voting audience, to announce gift card winners. Each winner was sent an Amazon gift card. This was done to promote audience participation and voting. While the events were in progress, we had also staffed the YouTube live broadcast to monitor the comments and to provide additional encouragement for participants and to motivate audience members to vote.
On the day of the finals, the results from the judges’ scores and the audience text votes were tallied and announced live at the end of the event by our President Durgesh Thaker, and Past Presidents Sanjay Gupta and Poonam Wadhwa.
We are happy to share the location of our livestreamed competitions. Please visit our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/IRCCFlorida, where you will find the following recordings of the live streams and recordings broadcast as follows:
- Let’s roll the wheel – Participant sequence selection for auditions – May 2, 2021
- Auditions – Day 1 – May 8, 2021
- Auditions – Day 2 – May 9, 2021
- Let’s roll the wheel – Participant sequence selection for semifinals – May 11, 2021
- Semi-finals – May 15, 2021
- Let’s roll the wheel – Participant sequence selection for finals – May 18, 2021
- Finals – May 22, 2021
As of today, we are pleased to have had over 6000 views of the YouTube videos of these events!
Since the competition took place, we have received numerous compliments about the quality of the event not only from contestants but also from audience viewers. We are thrilled about the resounding success of the first ever virtual IRCC Solo Singing Competition and hope to strengthen our arsenal of events by hosting more such singing competitions in future.
