First of all, thanks to all of you for the great suggestions that you've posted in this forum. Some of these ideas are really great and I'll be proposing them to the bar owners as alternatives to a contest. I've been a KJ in the Inland Empire (Southern California) for about 10 years now. I too, have mixed feelings about talent contests, but there is no doubt that they do increase business every time, if only temporarily. I've had all the same problems that you've all had and just have a few thoughts of my own. I've tried all the various judging systems at one time or another and
none is perfect. I thought having the contestants judge each other was the answer until I had one where 3 of the contestants (out of 10) were related (husband, wife, and brother/brother-in-law), gave each other maximum scores, and skewed the results in their favor. Needless to say, I was really disillusioned and ticked off
! I've since settled on 2 hand picked (by me) permanent judges that I KNOW are fair and unbiased. One is a woman, which prevents the "girl with the nice butt"
from winning every time. The 3rd is an alternate which I change on a weekly basis. The contest goes ten weeks with prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. Prizes vary from venue to venue. Sometimes it's cash, sometimes it's a buffet dinner for 2, sometimes free drink tokens from the bar, etc. It's not perfect. Some people still think it's rigged and there's usually at least one whiner in the group, but all-in-all it works pretty well for me. Looking forward to hearing from more of you and more of your great ideas!
Larry T.