This comp has just been a magnet for controversy this year between this supposed placing discrepancy and the rumored disqualifications. Missouri is wild this year.

1. What we’re not gonna do is come in here and degrade any group. Every student that takes the stage has dedicated their time and talents.

2. I can understand how there is confusion looking at raw scores compared the the placements. However, this competition uses consensus judging. Essentially, each judge’s raw score is converted into a “vote” for a specific placement in that group’s division. This ensures that each judge gets an equal say in the overall results. If, for instance, one judge swings wildly in points from group to group where the others have a tighter span of points, a raw score is only then reflective of his score rather than the collective whole. I have not personally examined every nuance of the judging results, but my assumption is that a majority of judges ranked Vocal Fusion above Tiger Momentum, but one individual judge may have swung so far in favor of TM that the raw scores are misleading.

It's a great point by Zachary. And not necessarily specific to Joplin, but show choir leadership in general fails the average audience member immensely by not simply explaining these things. It wouldn't even take 30 seconds in the final awards ceremony to acknowledge the contest's scoring system. If some contests can spend 5 minutes doing "shout-outs" while waiting for the group to perform, then they can take a moment to acknowledge points, points to rank, or consensus rank. It's important to continuously educate the show choir community as the audience is a revolving door as kids graduate and new parents/kids get involved in the activity.

Zachary,
I did not degrade any group; I called out a simple fact.
Sharing this information regarding consensus judging with the audience at live performances would be very helpful and would help eliminate confusion, when at the end of a competition, all we spectators CAN do is speculate. The lack of transparency in your judging style fosters confusion. Plus, knowing that the judging is subjective, we can all set our expectations accordingly. Minimally, a review of judging at each performance should be standard policy and it would be even more helpful to post an example of a blank judging evaluation form.

Jenks Trojanaires Best Female Soloist - Anabel White

Care to elaborate?

Destruction of property

Like, all of their choirs?

Yes

Phenomenal choir, it is just sad they are unable to realize when it is time to work and not play. Not sure what’s in store for the rest of their season.

Where did you get this information? I heard some people were playing hack sac and fell into a wall and cracked it. Pleasant hill as a whole also brought home 3 trophies. I don’t think they would have given them trophies if they got disqualified?

This is incorrect. Pleasant Hill received no penalty. The slight, accidental damage to a wall has been taken care of and there is no reason for this to even be mentioned. We were happy and proud to host Pleasant Hill’s choirs this weekend at Joplin.

They were not disqualified. Their director contacted the host and offered to pay for the damage. No disqualification was made.