THANKS A TON!!! ...but the ballad and the last two numbers won't play. YouTube says that they are unavailable.

I find this response interesting in that Mr. Brown makes it quite clear that he has little to no clue as to how the final placements were prepared. It seems silly to me that one would broadly defend every aspect of a competition like FAME Chicago without having personal knowledge of a process such as preparation of final placements. Additionally, the apparent inconsistency in scoring had absolutely nothing to do with the qualifications or sense of fairness of any of the judges. I don't question the briefing he claims the judges received, nor do I question the personal credentials or biases of the judges. What I question is any decision by FAME Events to switch the method of scoring during the competition.

As for the bolded portion of Mr. Brown's post, I do take issue with his characterization of me as "irresponsible." It is true that I "[don't] know the quality of people that run these events," but I don't feel I must make acquaintance with the organizers of FAME Chicago in order to raise objection with a slight. I think it is the opposite of irresponsible to bring attention to ethical concerns, especially when the participating choirs at FAME Chicago have payed a large sum to compete in what they probably felt was an equitable setting. It also does not seem irresponsible to me when other issues begin to surface; if Andrew Drinkall did not rank Clinton in first place, why was he listed as doing such? My hope in bringing attention to the scoring discrepancy is that each choir receives their appropriate due. There are no vindictive intentions in what I post here.

I was one of the judges last evening, and first of all, it was the single toughest finals I've judged in the 2 decades I've been judging! Stunning shows, incredible vocals, amazing intensity and multiple groups that are champions in every conceivable sense of the word.

I want to briefly address the person who speculated that something "fishy" was going on. For the record, I've NEVER adjudicated a competition before where there was a stronger emphasis on fairness, equity and integrity on the part of the judges. We received a briefing Friday night at dinner where we were told under NO circumstances were we to discuss our opinions on any show during the day with each other. We were not allowed to see the afternoon prelim results for fear that it could shade our opinion of the finals. All we were given was the order of appearance in the finals. We were told we could talk ONLY about captions (repetoire, soloists, original selection, etc) and NOTHING ELSE as it pertained to the competition. While this was a panel of veteran judges who all have integrity and would've judged fairly and independantly anyway, it was wonderful to see how careful FAME was (in particular Chad Alexander) in making sure decisions were made with total and complete fairness.

People much smarter than me do all the mathematical computations when it comes to the ideas of raw scores, rankings, conversions, percentages of weighting in captions, tie breakers, etc. I don't pretend to have any grasp at all on how these computations are programmed and determined. I do, however, know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it is all done with a commitment to fairness and of trying to do what's right by each and every school that attends each and every FAME competition. Any insinuation that consideration is given to who a school is in determining rankings is an irresponsible allegation made by somebody who obviously doesn't know the quality of people that run these events.

On a cheerier note, it was nice to be able to give a quick high-five to Jorge before entering the contest, as we'd never met before. It was a day to remember, because of the extreme excellence of those who performed and the brilliant shows that were designed and executed by some of the nation's top high school entertainers. It was my honor to be a part of it, and everybody needs to understand that both the FAME staff and every single judge took their jobs to be totally fair seriously.
God Bless, Damon Brown

Terrific question

Wait, so does this mean that ... Clinton had no first place rankings? Or does it just mean that there was a mistake in listing the judges who ranked Clinton/Burroughs first?

The wonderful solo is from Christina Aguilera's "Welcome", while the meat of the song is Michael Jackson's "The Greatest Show on Earth."

so i need to clarify that my director andrew drinkall did not have clinton in first. If you look at point totals he has burroughs in first with clinton in second by a point and somehow things got mixed up in the counting and it gave clinton a one ranking instead of burroughs. Just clearing that up...

so i need to clarify that my director andrew drinkall did not have clinton in first. If you look at point totals he has burroughs in first with clinton in second by a point and somehow things got mixed up in the counting and it gave clinton a one ranking instead of burroughs. Just clearing that up...