PLYMOUTH – While people near and far are salivating over which Blueberry Festival food booth they plan to take advantage of this weekend, other are warming up their vocal chords for the 5th annual Blueberry Idol karaoke contest.
The contest this year will be at the Roadrunner Pavilion at the front of Centennial Park, on Saturday afternoon. Registration starts at 1 p.m., with the contest immediately following at 1:30 p.m.
“Because of the concert Friday night, the high school football game at Rochester, and other obligations for many on Friday night, we decided to move the contest this year from the amphitheater on the back side of the park, to the front pavilion near the pony league diamond,” said event organizer Maggie Nixon. “We hope that by moving this to a 1:30 time slot, we will get a bigger draw and allow people throughout the front of the park to listen to the singers while the contest is going on.”
DJ host for the second year is David Starr, of Bremen. Emcee is once again Sam Howard, of Plymouth. “Sam really encompasses the ‘Ryan Seacrest’ aspect of this karaoke contest, in true American Idol style,” Nixon said. “He’s very funny and enjoys getting the crowd involved. Dave is a seasoned karaoke and dance music DJ and he has thousands of karaoke songs to choose from.”
Registration will be held from 1 to 1:30 p.m., with the contest starting immediately at 1:30. “We try to get through all the younger contestants first, and will name a winner based on judges’ scores. Then, we’ll run the adults through and choose a winner. The two winners will then have a sing-off for the grand prize title of Blueberry Idol, 2014. We have had several sponsors step up and help provide prizes this year, in addition to a Blueberry Festival basket of goodies, T-shirts, gift certificates, concert tickets for the B100 birthday party on Sept. 14 in South Bend, and more.
Singers will be judged on sound/tone, stage presence and song choice. “We’ve always made it a policy to let the singers see their scores after the contest, so they know what the judges’ impressions really were, and see what their scores were based on,” said Nixon. “We’ve always announced who our judges are prior to the contest, but this year, we’ll introduce them the day of.”
There is no need to pre-register, unless singers have a song they think may be either very new or very obscure. Given a little notice, Starr can download almost any request. Call Starr at 574-209-6233 for questions about song choice. Call 574-952-9920 for questions about the contest in general.
