America's Got Talent - Toot Your Horn! Read Only. No more posting. - PlanetChristmas! Forums. Read Only. We've moved to http://talk.planetchristmas.com - The Forums of PlanetChristmas have moved to http://talk.PlanetChristmas.com
We arrived at the Fairmont Hotel about 11:15am for our "12:00pm-3:00pm reservation" to audition for Americas Got Talent. We parked in the lot behind the hotel and took our place in the line outside the hotel which extended from one end of the building to the next. I would estimate there were around 400 people in a 1000' line.
They had information people who walked up and down the line telling people to have their paperwork ready and told us there could be no cameras, no cell phones and no recording of any kind once we reached the inside of the hotel. They had a camera crew working the line. Everything the camera shot was staged by the production staff and there was no impromptu shots at all. It was more like "on the count of three, everyone scream Dallas Got Talent as loud as you can, then jump up and down".
It took about 2.5 hours to finally get inside the building. We went up the escalator to the second floor and were routed to the registration tables. The line for registration had about 100 people in it and took us another 30 minutes. They checked our paperwork and sent us into the Regency Ballroom, which is the big ballroom at the end of the floor. We entered that room to join more than 500 people all seated in hotel chairs randomly skewed around the room.
This was the holding room. There were several junior high or high school pep squads, one Elvis (who had alcohol on his breath--image that), one Sinatra, about 400 teenage girl singers, one baton twirler, one 85 year old lady who tap danced while jumping a sequined jump rope, one lady with really big boobs and a low cut red dress--not sure what she was going to do, one bluegrass band, one electric guitar player, two or three male acoustic guitar players, one 34ish year old girl who played the acoustic guitar and sang "Stairway to Heaven" (I thought to be a strange selection), the Andrew Sisters who were dressed perfectly in 40's attire and big brown hairnets, a couple of street dancers doing spins on the floor, a Stevie Ray Vaughn look alike, two tap dancers and others which I cannot recall at this moment.
We were given a tag with a number on it and a guy with a megaphone would yell out about 20 numbers at a time. Those called would then line up in the ballroom and march down the hall to a row of chairs next to 5 or 6 break-out rooms. These were the audition rooms. Simon, Sharon and David were not part of today's activities, but were saved for the Dallas finals on Wednesday. The judges were not TV personalities. I can only assume they were professional within each given category of talent.
Finally, it was our turn to audition. We entered the room to see a table with a female tech behind a computer, the male judge who spoke with an English accent and a cameraman. The room was about 40'x20' and had a parquet dance in front of the table with 2 large lighting fixtures for illumination. The lights were static and not animated at all.
They had us stand on the "X", took our picture, and asked our name, age and a description of our act. We had the choice of dancing live or letting the judge view a DVD of our dance. We told him we brought both our music and our video with us and he asked us to dance first then look at the video second. The tech put our CD in the computer and the judge said, "Tell us when your ready".
Vickie and I both said "GO" and we were off to the Evolution.
The judges first words were, "You guys are great". Then he said "How many decades does that cover?". Puzzled by the question, I answered that it went from Elvis to Timberlake and he said "just a minute" and called someone on the wireless intercom system he had clipped to his shirt. He told this person that he had the Clauses in the dance room and they were performing the "Evolution of Dance", then he said "Yea, the one we saw on YouTube", then a couple of yea, ok, allrights. He looked all worried and us told that they did not have the time to "clear" that many songs, meaning negotiate and pay ASCAP/BMI for the rights to release by Wednesday's finals and that while they wanted us, they could not make it happen. I had already heard from a couple of singers who were made to change their song selection to one of their "cleared" songs so it all made sense then.
While Vickie and I never expected to make it pass this round with our novelty act in the midst of some truly talented individuals, we were totally surprised by the legal blockade thrown up in light of the fact that the judge wanted us in. We walked out of the Fairmont at 4:50pm and scratched the experience off of our "Bucket List".
I have four free tickets to the Dallas finals if anyone wants them. They are for either March 5 at 1:00pm and 6:00pm or March 6 at 11:00am and 4:00pm.
Last edited on Monday March 3rd, 2008 12:56 am by Charles Belcher
"Edit: What I don't get is why they were surprised by it because they had obviously seen the songs involved already. WTF?"
_____________________________
I started to challenge that statement, but then thought the better because I knew the decision would stand despite the argument.
That is unfortunate! The music industry is a mess to deal with.
I do not believe that people should share music and the early napster way of just giving away copyrighted material certainly needed to be stopped but there should be some exceptions and reasonable thought put into the rules and it should be made easy for us to give money to the industry. I have no issue at all giving them money to use their music. But it is not easy to give them money!
We have a terrible time trying to get the rights to sell music with sequences. Unlike most companies we get actual sync licenses for every song we sell and we pay a fee for each copy we sell. The sync fee is 10 times the cost of a regular license! It takes almost a year to get the agreement and we get turned down on lots of songs that we try for. On top of that add the cost for an agent to get the licenses.... Yuck.
Edit: Spelling
Last edited on Wednesday March 5th, 2008 06:34 am by LightORama
Although I don't have direct knowledge of the licensing process, I have heard many show producers talk about it and I am not surprised to hear about Light-O-Rama's added difficulty of a "sync license". I would not have guessed that to be the case, but then again, any way the recording industry can make a buck, they find a way to do so and that is great for the artists.
I suppose the thing that got me the most was the fact that they knew about the Evolution of Dance, had obviously seen either the original by Judson Laipply, Mr & Mrs. Claus or any one of the many others you can watch, knew we were going to perform that dance and still allowed us to go through the entire process.
Charles I am sorry things worked out for you like they did. I agree they already knew what music you were using, therefore they should of let you know before getting there you would'nt be able to use it.
Congratulations on impressing the judges anyway! It was a great experience though and one you will remember forever.
Peggy13 wrote: Charles I am sorry things worked out for you like they did. I agree they already knew what music you were using, therefore they should of let you know before getting there you would'nt be able to use it.
Congratulations on impressing the judges anyway! It was a great experience though and one you will remember forever.
Peggy,
I have been out of town for a few days without my computer and just read your post. Thank you for your compliment.
That event is over for us now and I am looking forward to April when I can start thinking about the 2008 display concept.
![:]](/images/emoticons/big_grin.gif)
