Karaoke World Championship qualifiers to be held in Taber

By Brylan Span
Taber Times
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A new weekly karaoke night is coming to Taber, and it brings a twist.
Crissy Petersen and Twisted Family Entertainment will be hosting a weekly karaoke night at Boston Pizza. The event will be from 7 p.m.-11 p.m. on Thursdays, and all ages are welcome.

While Petersen will host a regular karaoke night for the first three weeks, starting April 18 the nights will additionally act as a Karaoke World Championship (KWC) qualifier.

“It’s the largest amateur competition in the world,” explained Petersen. “It includes over 33 different countries that participate, it’s a very big competition.”

Hailing from the Vancouver area, Petersen previously was British Columbia’s provincial director for the KWC.          

“I don’t live there anymore so I don’t direct anymore, but that doesn’t stop me from being able to run venue qualifiers,” said Petersen.

The process to qualify for the KWC and represent Canada is a lengthy one. Petersen explained “It starts regionally, and we have as many venues as we can possibly find that would like to send singers into this competition. We hold single competitions within their venue, and then send their finalists to the provincials which is a three day long event to then feed into nationals which is also held in Calgary at the Deerfoot. Then all of the Canadian competitors that have gotten that far then come to Calgary. Then the top singers from that go to worlds this year, they’ll be going to Finland.”

Judging for the regional level will be done based on specific criteria and a judging software. Petersen explained that there will be “three judges that will be sitting there judging them, just like an American Idol kind of thing.”

A helpful tool for aspiring singers will be the digital feedback from the judges that the participants receive each week. With competitors’ top two scores throughout the weeks that they choose to participate being what will possibly advance them on to provincials, this feedback will help them improve for following weeks, with hopes of scoring higher.

“Every week there is different song themes that they have to sing,” said Petersen. “They can come out for one week and sing two songs, or they can come out every week for six weeks, and then the top singers out of that come to our venue final and we send the top six to provincial’s.”

Petersen mentioned that when competition nights start, there will still be regular karaoke.

“It’s open to everybody, there is no age limit, just when it comes to the competition you have to be 18 or older and you are not allowed to already be a professional singer or make money singing as it’s an amateur competition,” stated Petersen.

For those interested in competing, registration can be done before the competition nights, or at the event.

Petersen is optimistic about the longevity of the event night, stating “If all goes well then we will continue to be in Taber on Thursdays after the competition.”