Competitions- How to make them fair

We see competitions everywhere in life. From Dancing with the stars, Olympics, chess tournaments, and yes even in magic.

Competitions are funny animals…they are exciting, electrifying, disappointing, and an education. On paper it may look like so and so is going to win the gold medal in the Olympics, but muscles are torn, on any given day one individual could beat out another…strange happenings:)

How do we go about ensuring fairness in the judging? The Olympics has one of the best solutions…a point system, but most importantly judges that know what they are looking for…the audience might go wild, but the technical difficulty might be a 1 and someone else tries a level 5 difficulty. They deduct or add points accordingly.

In a magic competition, a point system w/ points being added or deducted based on technical difficulty would be a great start, but then finding judges that know what to look for and judge fairly.

Perhaps, the best solution is a combination of audience reaction (scoring?) and other magicians not in competition but with expertise in that area scoring technique, showmanship (presentation that is engaging vs one that is self explanatory…now I’m going to cut to the 4 aces.)

Until the next competition:)

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