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Bhangra Blitz Competition Review

ampal

Member
Messages
43
I thought about posting a review a few times but I kinda already said what I wanted to say.

Previously known as R2B2, I was the first to rave about the organization and efficiency of this competition but Blitz has been getting progressively worse ever since 2016.

Pre Comp:
The rubric or the judges weren’t listed in the acceptance packet so a few people from our team continuously asked who the judges were and if Blitz could share the rubric. The committee would just not respond. We would DM them, text them, email them, nothing. Now it’s around two weeks before the comp and we still didn’t know what the rubric looked like or who the judges were. They finally made a captains groups two weeks before the competition and I was the first one to again ask for the freakin rubric. I asked on the 14th in the captains group and they sent the rubric on the 16th, comp was on the 23rd. Now this rubric is constructed like no other rubric I have ever seen before. After doing a little digging, I figured out that this rubric was the exact same rubric they used last year when the comp was raas only. They just changed “raas” to “Bhangra.” This email also consisted of a google doc where we could ask the judges questions (still unnamed) and they would provide the answers on feb 19th...4 days before the competition. They said there was a judges meeting the Monday before the comp but I misread it as a judges meeting with the captains. When I figured we would not get to speak to the judges about the rubric, I sent one of the members a long message about how the rubric doesn’t make any sense and questioned how head movements can be worth the same as energy as the same as stage set up??, etc etc...they didn’t reply. They just emailed us a new rubric on the 19th... 4 days before the comp apologizing that they accidentally sent the wrong rubric on the 16th. OH, the judges were never announced. They wanted to keep it “fair.”

Comp Weekend:
Mixer said it would start at 7:30 in the acceptance packet but they started rushing us at 6. Half our team hadn’t even arrived yet because we were literally going off the acceptance packet... because there hasn’t been any other communication done by the committee. Anyway, when we get there, they are having us log into blackboard, show our student IDs and drivers license.

First, this competition acts like it’s a collegiate competition but doesn’t take the necessary steps to ensure their rule of 75% of the roster needs to be enrolled in college is taken care of before the competition. The day of the mixer, getting our wristbands and registering for the weekend was harder than getting through immigration but we all got through and the mixer started.

Nowhere to sit, nothing to eat, just got grouped into random teams and had to perform random dance styles (tango, ballet, two step) to random songs that had nothing to do with the style. They gave us 10 mins. The lineup was going to be determined by a triple blind game so it didn’t even matter. Somehow 3 things aligned so well and we’ve hurt the Bhangra Gods and got 1st in lineup again lol They gave us chicken saag and one scoop of Briyani rice. I will say though that our keto meals were on point.

We left the mixer early because we had to finish some things but then found out from our manager that the committee wanted to recheck everyone’s IDs and school credentials or we’d be disqualified...the night before the comp...or pay $50/head for everyone who isn’t in school. First it’s unclear in the packet if the entire roster has to be 75% enrolled in college or just the dancers. In the meeting they said only the dancers had to be in college. We had 16 ppl on the roster, 10 dancing, one Dholi. It’s also unclear if “enrolled in college” means same college or any college because we’ve asked this question in the previous years and they’ve answered just enrolled in any college plus they accepted our application with IDs from different schools. Anyway, now they have us showing current emails sent from our schools in a long conference room, but claimed they weren’t interrogating us. We cooperated and everything checked out. My question is, when I applied to the comp and sent the IDs, why couldn’t you do all of this then? We had to change the roster due to injuries and personal events but roster change is allowed by this comp, why didn’t you ask for all these credentials then? How are you going to threaten to disqualify a team after we put months of work into it for something you didn’t follow through on? It’s not like the school sends the payments to our bank account. These people just Venmo you the prize money.

Tech time:
Going first means you’re going to be delayed and lighting is going to be off. It was delayed by 30-45mins, we really didn’t care. The lighting person hadn’t arrived yet, blah blah blah, and finally our tech time started. We had 20 mins. We like to get a feel for the stage and walk thru some formations and do a full run thru at the end. When 9 mins were left, we said, play the music with lighting. The lighting was off so they stopped everything and finally gave our lighting cues to the lighting tech. I’m over here on the side watching this clock go down, asking for more time because this isn’t our fault and they’re just saying no. “No” was literally their favorite word. We asked if someone could take a video from judges view during tech and they said no cuz second balcony was off limits because judges would sit there DURING the show...but which judge is sitting there during tech time at 8am? Anyway, back to the tech. They finally agreed to just let our 7.5min mix play fully. Someone already mentioned this but we asked for a monitor for our Dholi and the dancers and they said no. All of these little things could have been discussed at a captains meeting prior to the comp but they just didn’t care about any of the little things that matter a lot to the teams to even have a meeting.

Comp:
Our stage time was 6:45pm and they told us to come to the venue (15 mins away) at 3pm... lol Again, Why? what are we going to do at the venue for 3 hours? Finally got the time changed to 5PM and everything went smoothly. Show ran on time, maybe even early. We got to watch all of the teams after us. Last team went and like 20 mins later, the placings were announced.

The rest y’all all know. We didn’t think the placings were fair, there were other teams on the lineup that could have placed too, according to the rubric but we were penalized for things that other teams were rewarded for. I heard the deliberation was cut short so who know what actually happened.

Anyway, at this point, our team is just mad and everyone wants to go to the judges meeting and the committee said no. Again, without asking. They finally asked the judges and we were ok with the judges not feeling comfortable with more than two people. What I don’t understand is, why the hell were they so rude to us and acting like they were doing us a favor the entire weekend? Saying things like, “of course it’s Alamo.” Like shit, we’re hella nice. We were never disrespectful and asked relevant questions. Learn to have a little compassion if you’re going to be the face of a competition.

After party:
Was lit, hosted by 3rd party.

Also maybe if you want more than 20 ppl in the audience, next time take a team from Dallas. Lol

That’s it.

#wheresclutch2k19
 
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