Prize money between overall &category winner. Your thoughts?

[misha0890]

With some competitions that offer all 3 different styles of dance (raas/garba, fusion, and bhangra) winners are sometimes then declared in this way...a first place prize within each category and then an overall winner.


Do you think the overall winner should be narrowed down from the 3 category winners? or should a category winner not be allowed to be overall winner as well?


I feel that since prize money is involved, people may find it unfair for a team to win the category prize money and overall best prize money (which is generally a large amount). However, I believe that it is hypocritical for a team that didn't win category winner to be overall winner. For example, if bhangra team A won overall best and bhangra team B won category winner then that's like saying bhangra team B won second place in their category...not first.


However, I also believe that if a competition intends to declare one of the category winner as overall winner than the prize money for overall winner should not be significantly more than category winner.


Example, instead of making it $700 for each category and then $1300 for overall winner, make it equal for all 4 slots. $850 for all 4 (3 categories+ overall winner). (This way competitions could announce that one of the three category winners will have the chance of doubling their prize money).


I'm actually really really confused as to how this works... is there a flaw to this? Let me know what you think.

 

[Ashveer]

Kithe ton aayi?

 

[gagan aujla]

why would it be unfair for a team to get the large amount of prize money that comes with being both a category winner and overall winner? If they were voted the best team, they they deserve the money

 

[misha0890]

I agree actually, I guess the difference in prize money isn't that big of a deal. But what about narrowing down from the category winner to overall best?

 

[yraparla]

It's actually not that complicated. It all depends on:

a) how many teams are involved
b) what your goals are
c) what the judging is like


If you have only 3 teams per category then by not having a category winner be an overall winner means only 1 team in the overall winner's category won't get recognized (1 wins overall, second wins category, third team gets nothing). This is to me, fairly unsporting and makes no sense.

However, I could see this happening if you separate judging in some fashion between the category and overall comp (I've seen this happen). That is, you have some category score that is unique and tailored to the style of dance in each category, and you have some overall metrics that are used to compare the styles. It's possible the best team in the category score doesn't score as well in the overall points and loses to a team in their category, see? Again, this only works if you calculate a separate overall score from the category score.

Most integrated comps have a generic rubric and allow judges to independently fill them in with relation to the category. That is, there could be a traditional category, but how they critique fusion teams with relation to traditionality would not be the same as how they critique bhangra. So there is a single score that all teams get that is comparable and relative to their style (though in a common framework), and the best team gets the overall prize period


As for prize money, it depends. You could say category winners get 1k and overall gets 2k. What that really means is that overall gets 1k for category and 1k for overall see? Or you could give them 1k for category and 2k for overall. It depends on the money you want to give out.

 

[mafzal]

With different types of dance I would keep it to category winners only. I don't believe in comparing bhangra teams to raas teams to fusion teams.

 

[Basim]

With different types of dance I would keep it to category winners only. I don't believe in comparing bhangra teams to raas teams to fusion teams.

+1 - Mariam is a smart girl.

If you really need to choose an overall winner, I would do it based on crowd reaction or something that's not limited to one particular style of dance.

My two cents,

~ Basim

 

[itsG]

Some comps, well a recent comp registration packet i was looking at, had 3 categories - bhangra/raas/fusion will have 3 judges, one for each respected category, Then in order to decide the category winner the judge from that category was weighted at 1.3x as much as his/her general score. Then in deciding overall winner each judge was weighted the same. So i say in a way that makes it a bit fair?

 

[misha0890]

To Swi, thanks!! That really did clear up my confusion. I also think it is unfair for the third team of a category to receive nothing if their is a category winner and overall winner declared within the same category.


Yeah I agree with Mariam, judging all 3 categories together is a bad idea. However, Aaj Ka Dhamaka does this every year... and I think they've done a pretty good job of establishing their competition in the southeast.


And to Gagan, I believe you're referring to Aag Ki Raat's competition packet? I just looked at that a few days ago myself. And yeah their 1.3 weight for one judge for each category respective to their experience seems fair. Then for overall winner, the weight is not carried over. I was looking up past results for the competition...apparently the overall winner was not one of the category winners and there were 3 teams per category.


Also the prize money for AKR is $600 for each category winner and $1200 for overall best. Something tells me they intend to not make a category winner the overall best again this year because of how the money is divided. I dont know for any of you all, but $600 doesn't seem very appealing, especially since someone pointed out how registration could cost up to $430 for a team of 16 on a previous thread ($30 non refundable + $25 per person) And that's not even including travel/hotel expenses. This could limit the competitions ability to branch out and get many reputable teams to come down.


Assuming they have a $3000 budget for prize money ($600 x3 + $1200) I think they should have set the prize money to $750 for each category and then overall best (one of the 3 category winners) should receive a total of $1500.

 

[itsG]

Hmmmmm...might have been probably was
But that also leaves one team hanging in the way that they have been doing it. I like the way you describe definitely more appealing to consider going to a comp that atleast almost "breaks even"