Fail: Maritime Idol

Posted by Alex on Jun 17, 2010 in Blog | Comments

Opinions expressed belong solely to the author.

One thing I pride myself on is being opinionated. It’s not the best way to make friends, but I don’t write a blog to make friends. I write it to share my thoughts and that’s exactly what I am about to do.

Last year a local individual introduced me to Maritime Idol. They didn’t need to explain what it was to me because the name comes with a description tattooed into it. Being a guy who has worked in the events industry since I was 16 and heavily involved with talent searches I was curious about it.

Maritime Idol is a talent competition based in the Maritimes (obviously) which targets students. They offer the winner a CD recording contract and the winner receives 70% of all revenues after production costs. My understanding is that  they then take a % of all your future performance fees for the life of the 3-year contract, which is crazy. Here is how it works —or how I think it works. The website is a bloody maze! Steve Jobs would cry if he seen it.

Local singers are invited to take part in “heats” at various bars, clubs and schools across the area. Performers are charged to perform and spectators are charged entry. The audience vote for the 4 people they want to see go through to the next round. Apparently forcing them to pick 4 makes it fair.. Someone explain that to me? It’s still a popularity contest doesn’t matter how many you ask them to pick.

Votes are also taken online and only allow one nomination per day, per IP address. So once again, not completely based on talent. It’s based on how many friends you have on Facebook or how many people know how “ipconfig /release” works.

Each week one contestant (based on the votes) goes through to the regional finals. I’m sure by now you get how this works. So what’s my problem with this so far. I hate the whole spectator decides crap. It’s not fair and the online voting makes it extremely fixable. Send me $10 and I’ll guarantee I can make you win this year’s competition. *joke*.

Its $7+ to get in. Well I understand they have to make money. The Haliwards ceremony was $8 a head and that was in a completely different league. (but really they are two different types of event so I shouldn’t compare them). So —I’m trying to work out how they got from A to B.

Pictured above is the 2008 winners CD. So after countless heats and then regional finals, semi-finals and final this is the finished product. Well it’s nothing special. I can confirm it’s not because I have the same cases from Best Buy. The CD’s are your average home made production.

This is not for one second a dig at the performers. The winners of these competitions are very talented. They are very welcome to drop me a line and we can have a chat.  I just feel that they have been severely let down.

Since last year I have researched this group and have even met with the organiser and it really is one big puzzle to me.  I was even asked  if I would judge some of the HRM heats and obviously I declined.

It’s no secret that in the coming months that I will be perusing a talent search for performers for the Haliwards so some of you may think that this is just a lame attempt to distinguish any competition. Well I honestly don’t think we are in the same type of events.

In my opinion this is an unprofessional unit.

Update 1 – 24/6: Tickets for the final are actually $30 per person. This just backs up what i am saying. How do they get from A to B. That’s an expensive ticket.

Update 2 – 26/6: Ron (Owner of MI) sent me a nasty email this morning, followed by a link to a “hate site” saying that I fail. “The truth about Alex Maine coming soon”. I’ll let you make up your own minds on this.

Update 3 – 26/6: Ron has agreed to take the site down. He is welcome to post his thoughts freely below.

Click here for Fail: Maritime Idol – Revisited (Contains more information)


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  • Tony
    http://herenb.canadaeast.com/rss/article/744846

    Here is a little more public information, that can be found on the Net.

    Tony Barton

    Fredericton

    PS. This is not about a English / French situation, this is about how underhanded people can be, so please don't beleive any BS that someone may try and say.

    And believe me there is more on the net to find.
  • Tony Barton
    It get's better and better when you dig a little bit in the history of someone, now remember that this is the winner of the 2010 Maritime Idol that no one new of, that was suppose to be an unkown amateur, But has traveled to France as a professional.

    http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/news/article/633598

    Tony Barton
    Fredericton NB
  • Rob
    If you want to get personnal, we can do that, Obviously, you have an attitude problem, you can't see the forest from the trees! A poisoned work environment gets you all worked out. Maritime Idol competition gets you all worked out. It seems every environment you are in gets poisoned... Mmm I think I see a connection here!

    When was the last time you saw a professional 12 year old singer?

    Before you make statements like that, check your facts!
  • Apjbarton
    I think you will be very interested to hear our experience with maritime idol. our daughter was a finalist this season and we just returned from the so called competition. I will be in touch and give the details of our experience and let me know what you think. I dont think what i have to share will shine a very positive light on this competition. Is it on the up and up, in my opinion absolutely not.... I will be in touch ....
  • Feel free to drop me an E-mail or a call.
  • Ron
    First I would like to say that of course everyone is entitled to their opinion. My only request is that facts be presented as a ground for these opinions.
    In Alex's initial blog there were at least 3 major errors in fact which have now being rectified.

    I obviously don't agree with his opinion but we are a free society and he's entitled to that opinion.
    Now for my comments on the fairness of the competition. We have gone to great lengths to make it as fair as possible but no, no system is perfect but I can guarantee that the person that wins the Maritime Idol title is very deservant of that title. Take a look on our website www.maritimeidol.com at our 18 finalists this year, incredible talent all the way around.

    More important then all of this though, is that most of our participants really enjoy their experience and the opportunity to be heard via a mass media such as the Internet. Their friends, relatives and/or supporters can view their performances on Youtube from anywhere in the world.
    That's what Maritime Idol is about... giving them that opportunity. Will they all become stars? Probably not but neither will most of the tens of thousands of kids that play organized hockey in the Maritimes but they have fun and that's what we're about. No we are not American Idol, we are not Britain's got talent but we sure have a lot of fun.
    Last but not least on the ticket prices, we lose money year round running around the entire Maritime provinces to do these 4 week auditions. We recuperate some of it at year end and ensure we have the funds to provide the prizes.
  • Admin
    Alex, I know you desperately want to start some type of singing competition on your own and as you said in your email to me ("I have a project in the pipeline that is currently in the codename stage and i plan to run a major talent search across the Maritimes in the summer") but bashing the competition is not the way to go Alex.

    I would like for you to remove the untruths from your blog or face the legal consequences.

    The choice is yours old chap !

    Best of Regards

    Ron Pomerleau

    M.I. Productions
    77 Callaghan Road
    Riverview,NB
    Canada
    E1B 4P1
    506 870 8376
    506 870 8307
    www.midomains.biz www.flashwebsite.biz www.maritimeidol.com www.3website.info www.idoleacadie.com
    www.shippingcost.biz
  • Jordan
    Ron,

    Threatening legal consequences - particularly in a case where you have no grounding - is not the way to represent your business.

    Alex is pointing out the shortcomings of the methods you are using for your competition along with the seemingly lacklustre 'prize' that comes from winning. As a business owner you should be taking this as constructive criticism, not as an attack on your character.

    There are ways in which you could repair some of the problems that Alex has described. First, you could ensure that multiple judges select the performers in the early stages so that only the truly top talents make it to the later rounds. At that point you can let the popularity contest ensue since you have already selected the top talent. In the current system a truly terrible performer could potentially continue to later rounds by simply having more friends. Alternatively a talented performer that simply isn't as talented as others in the competition could make it through - thus cutting out the best performers and defeating the purpose of the entire event.

    The production quality of those discs could also be easily remedied. If you're taking cash from both performers and spectators, then it's likely you have enough income to pay for a proper CD production system. Yet you provide them with the same quality of discs as the performer could have made on their laptop with a $100 Canon disc printer. All that this shows is that the business is in this for the money with no regard to the actual performers and no respect for their talent. Otherwise you would be rewarding them with quality production. I'm sure this is not your intent, but unfortunately it is how it looks.

    Learning from criticism like this is how businesses change and ultimately survive. So do what a respectable business owner should do; take the criticism in stride and allow your company to change for the better.

    Jordan
  • Thanks for your two cents on this. Just discovered that Ron has opted with the childish route and made a "Alex Maine Hate Site" instead. I was merely trying to offer my thoughts on how this project should be redeveloped.
  • Mike
    Your websites are appalling your efforts to design a website are childish and with the choice of flash as the primary content/interface makes the site less accessible to those on older systems with less resources and the mobile community you fail professionally and personally I'm disappointed as a web designer myself and as a web user It embarrasses me to even call you a web designer in the least bit heres some help http://www.w3schools.com/ which I doubt will do anything for you
  • Tony
    Dude.. You can't sue someone for having an opinion.
    and who died on your website..
  • intrepidblue
    Do some market research and tread lightly; talent shows can come off terribly gauche. I am no expert in the field, but it's easy to smell the stink of a poorly run, cheaply (not just $ wise) produced event of this nature.
  • Agreed. Our current plans are to do everything with a judging panel behind closed doors. To early to tell for sure though.
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Contact Alex
E-Mail: alex@srv.cc
Cell: (902) 402-2930