It's hard to explain quickly. In essence it is a consensus scoring system. The final rankings of the choirs are used to determine the winner, but not in the standard way. It's meant to prevent a single judge from changing the outcome. Normally what happens is you add up the ranking and the lowest total is 1st and so on.
For example:
Group A is awarded: 1 1 1 2 1 2 6 = 14
Group B is awarded: 2 2 2 1 2 1 2 = 12
In the standard scoring system Group B would have been awarded first. In the Fehr Fair system Group A would win because the consensus of the panel (4 of the 7 judges ranked them 1st). It prevents the final judge from pushing Group A into second place by placing them 6th when it's clear the rest of the panel had a dramatically different opinion.
There are a lot more details that take care of ties and stuff, but that's the basics.
So that wouldn't have drastically changed the outcome at this particular competition, would it?
What is the 'Fair Fehr' or 'Fehr Fair' scoring system?
It's hard to explain quickly. In essence it is a consensus scoring system. The final rankings of the choirs are used to determine the winner, but not in the standard way. It's meant to prevent a single judge from changing the outcome. Normally what happens is you add up the ranking and the lowest total is 1st and so on.
For example:
Group A is awarded: 1 1 1 2 1 2 6 = 14
Group B is awarded: 2 2 2 1 2 1 2 = 12
In the standard scoring system Group B would have been awarded first. In the Fehr Fair system Group A would win because the consensus of the panel (4 of the 7 judges ranked them 1st). It prevents the final judge from pushing Group A into second place by placing them 6th when it's clear the rest of the panel had a dramatically different opinion.
There are a lot more details that take care of ties and stuff, but that's the basics.
I concur with Adam. This competition was spectacularly run in every way.
Only one small complaint. They had this amazing smelling pasta dinner that included both a red sauce version and a white sauce version. Unfortunately both were infected with huge mushrooms so I left hungry and disappointed at dinner time.
In the grand scheme of things that is tiny. The backstage staff in particular were amazingly helpful moving all of our equipment on stage and getting us the stands, piano bench, etc. that we need to perform our show.
WOOHOO!!!! I'm so proud of you guys. What a fantastic start to the season! Keep it up and find everywhere you can improve, and the sky's the limit! God Bless, Damon