A director from Waltham is taking the time to comment extremely respectfully and to provide clarity regarding an error that was not Waltham's fault. Daniel Hand VIBE's own social media has updated their recent post to remove Best Band from the awards they received in accordance with this error. It'd be appreciated, Conan40, if you displayed better sportsmanship especially since you're hiding behind an anonymous account.
>Account joined the site today
>Impersonating a judge at this competition
>Simply refuses to accept what Somerset, Waltham, and Daniel Hand all say happened...
This is something that does happen in the Midwest. I think, if a judge is qualified, they are able to take that bias out. You can see that the former director of my choir did not place us any higher than any other judges this past weekend. I have seen judges judge their own kids' work, with mixed results. I don't need to name names- sometimes people are really good at not having any style/personnel bias when judging. Others.... well maybe not so much.
If you have legitimate scoring gripes, post the scores with no comment, and we can make our own decisions. Otherwise, it's just biased complaining on your part.
I only have experience running Scoring at a competition for the past several years. Things can happen in every situation. I come from the olden days where judges all used pencil and paper and you had to tally and double check everything by hand. Obviously, some human error can happen in those situations. Nowadays, there are a lot of online scoring systems. There can be a simple spreadsheet error: one of the cells didn't transfer correctly. That can lead to many different things.
I had a situation last year where one of the choir's scores were all inputted correctly and all of the results were correct, but one of the scoresheets printed was missing one of that choir's scores. It would have looked like the results were wrong if I had not noticed it and made sure there was a correction. (This also happened at a different competition we attended this year, but it wasn't caught before printing. Also did not effect results in any way.)
I have also attended a competition where, two years in a row, a group's vocal scores were not added to their total, causing them to be announced as missing finals, when they were actually firmly in finals with high scores. In this situation, it took that group's director to notice to rectify the results. That happened to be at the competition, but it could've happened afterward.
So, again, we are going to need firm evidence, otherwise I feel quite comfortable trusting the word of the director of the competition.
So, are you suggesting there may have been an error in the cell population? Because that would directly contradict the festival’s apology, in which they retroactively claimed that the results were determined by a conversation rather than total points. And listen, that would be plausible—if anyone had known that was how the band would be judged going into the competition. But it’s been total points in previous years at Somerset. There was no legitimate reason for a conversation to suddenly become the deciding factor, and for that reason, VIBE should have rightfully won the award. Most responses within this thread to such points seems to only be met with circumvention.
Refer to the image above for the Band scoring breakdown.
Nowhere in the rules does it state that, in the absence of a band judge, any factor other than the total score should determine the winner. Therefore, VIBE earned the Best Band title based on the established scoring criteria. Respectfully, there should be no confusion.
The festival coordinator reached out to Waltham today and let us know that due to an error in their scoring system the incorrect best band was awarded. It appears that on the scoring system spreadsheet you shared it auto populated with the “integration of accompaniment” score but that was not how they were actually determining best band. I’m assuming this is how the wrong group was announced. This is an unfortunate situation all around.
The integration of accompaniment was not an automatic population but rather the decisive factor in how the bands were scored and graded. The alternative method you reference, which would have been determining the “best” through a “conference,” is based entirely on discretion rather than a structured scoring system. Notably, this discussion appears to have taken place only after the results had already been finalized, as evidenced by the need to correct a mistake. Additionally, while this isn’t to make things political, the fact that one of the judges in this conference was the former Waltham director raises legitimate concerns about whether external influences, rather than objective evaluation, played a role in the outcome.
But if scoring was not the determining factor, then what was? If Waltham truly won, where is the score that proves it? A competition is only as credible as the system that upholds it, yet this decision appears to have been absent of any measurable standard. Instead of a fair grading system that prioritizes the students, this approach raises serious questions about transparency and the overall integrity of the results.
Again, Tom, I have nothing against you or the Waltham Show Choir/Band. You guys kill it every time. My issue is with the festival itself and the lack of clarity surrounding this whole situation.
I totally understand where you are coming from. You bring up valid points. I can’t speak for the festival but I’m guessing it was a conference similar to how they did best soloists. I just wanted to relay the update I got so the kids got recognized. Again, this whole situation is unfortunate.
The key takeaway here is that competitions should establish clear, pre-defined guidelines for award determinations—especially when decisive "conferences" of this nature involve the band—to ensure a fair and transparent process. In this case, at no point was it made clear beforehand that a conference would take precedence over the scoring sheet. These decisions should not be made retroactively after the scores have been finalized.
I do agree that rules should be clearly established and the things you’re saying are valid. Even with this situation that had negative impacts on both groups, I don’t want to be too hard on anyone. Putting on a festival is a ton of work and I’m grateful to Somerset for having us. I have nothing but respect for the VIBE team and can’t wait to see you all again at Lil Rhody!
