Third season of family oriented event starting April 12

rseaborn@pickenssentinel.com

LIBERTY - With the start of Liberty Idol slated for April 12, event director Roy Costner said the popular Saturday evening contest will feature two changes over the past two seasons.

In its third year, the weekly event, based loosely on the FOX network reality series hit American Idol, offers a stage for area singers to compete for the audience vote in their quest for a $2,500 first place pot and the title of Liberty Idol, he said.

This season will have the musical contest starting a few weeks earlier than those in the past, he said.

"We just thought it would be nice if not every evening would be hot," he said.

This season will have potential contestants vying for the chance to sing on the downtown stage in an earlier audition with a few judges, rather than the "first come, first serve" order of prior years, Costner said.

"The first four weeks of Liberty Idol is for auditions," he said. "This year, beginning at Noon, anyone wanting to sing for an audience that night will have to sing ten seconds of a song A Cappella for some judges who will tell them if they are performing that night or not."

Those auditions will be held at Liberty's Rosewood Center, he said.

Audiences will be able to view a video re-play of the auditions on a large-screen television, he said.

According to Costner, previous years showed that many performers, rejected the week before would arrive early the following week of the competition and under the guidelines, be allowed to sing again.

"That wasn't fair to other talented performers and to the audience," he said. "And Liberty Idol is a work in progress. Every year we learn something different."

Following the audition section in which 16 top performers are selected to advance in the competition, Liberty Idol will continue for another nine weeks during which everyone attending can vote for their top five favorites. Contestants receiving fewer votes will be eliminated, he said.

This year, the performers will be able to add 20 percent to their ballots by collecting donations for the Ronald McDonald House, Costner said.

"It will be one vote for each quarter collected," he said. "And all the proceeds will go to the Ronald McDonald House and Ronald McDonald himself will attend the final night of Liberty Idol."

Each year has seen a growth in attendance of the summer event, with the first year seeing a beginning of 150 people in the audience and an ending of about 1,500 people, he said.

"Last year, we went from 1.500 people to about 4,000 on the final night," he said. "This year we could see between 6,000 and 10,000 people for the last night.

"I don't know where we will put them all," he said.

The popularity of Liberty Idol stems from the family atmosphere that permeates the city streets during the event.

"It's family oriented and it takes you back to those days of childhood when your hometown was a gathering place for family events," he said. "It had a different feeling then, and that's what people get from Liberty Idol.

"Just think, with all those people attending, we have never had a single problem," he said.

"It's family oriented, it's a free event, and there's no alcohol, and so many great talents come out to perform" he said. "Small town America at its finest."

Liberty Idol is held every Saturday night in downtown Liberty beginning April 12 and lasting for the following nine weeks. The first performance starts weekly at 7 p.m.