$5,000 Amateur Contest - Behind The Scenes

December 15, 2004

Most DVDs come with "Behind the Scenes" mini-documentaries so I thought I'd copy this idea and one here in my diaries section, which hasn't gotten much action in the last few years.

In case you don't know about the contest, first read the "published" version of the event and come back and read this last.

First of all, I'd like to explain that I don't like too much stress in my life so that's why I've avoided being associated with any contests in the last few years. Frankly, for me, organizing and running a contest is a lot of headaches and very little fun. But when Jerry and Richard from Spearmint Rhino downtown Los Angeles approached me with the idea to have one at their club, I thought about it. After talking to Richard, I was convinced that he and his crew there could run the contest smoothly and I wouldn't have to get stressed out.

Once that was set, we picked a date and started the promotion process. Originally, we decided that 20 contestants would be enough and we were going to cap it at that number. If you downloaded the judge's form, you know that the form only had space for 20 contestants. I even created number tags for the contestants but only created enough for 20. After a while, it became apparent that there were probably going to be more than 20 contestants so we scrapped the "capping" idea and opened it up to all comers. Although this meant that each contestant only had about 2 minutes 30 seconds for their entire set, it did mean plenty of eye candy for the audience. After seeing the entire event, I think it was the right decision to open up the contest to more contestants.

On the night of the contest, I went to Office Depot to buy a bunch of pens for the judges, but later found out that Richard from the Rhino was one step ahead and already had them ready. Next, I met up with my crew at Sam's and we drank and played pool. Actually, to be honest, I just watched and bet on who would miss their shots. I only ended up winning $1, but my friend Steve made $40 on one shot. What a lucky bank shot that was.

But I digress. We got in 3 cars and went down to the Rhino were I found a few more of the crew in the parking lot there. Richard let us sit in their VIP section for the contest which gave us a really good view of the contestants. Later, Jacklyn Lick and Andy E from Private Dancer Magazine showed up. Thankfully, Jacklyn took care of M.C.ing the event and Andy took care of photography, which left absolutely nothing for me to have to do, except just to enjoy the contest like everybody else.

Richard wanted to make sure that there wasn't even any perception of impropriety regarding the contest so he wanted the dancers to stay in the dressing room and not talk to the judges. So the good news, certainly for the contestants, was that unlike a lot of contests, this was completely legit. The bad news, for the judges, was that they weren't gonna get any free lap dances from the contestants before the contest. Oh, well.

During the contest, house dancers Elli and Canela sat with us in the booth and commented about the contestants while TenFree got free lap dances from one of them. At least somebody got free lap dances. By the way, for the record, Andy and I did not judge the contest. Andy was too busy taking pictures and I was too busy taking notes and trying to hit on the house dancers. My favorite quote of the night was from house dancer Amber who said, "Good looking guys are assholes and good looking girls are bitches. Because they can." True. True. But sometimes, even ugly people can be assholes. Just look at me.

Jacklyn got the contest started at about the scheduled time.  Because of the number of contestants, each would only have time for one song.  I asked Jacklyn to explain how the judges were to score the contest, as follows:

For those judging, please listen carefully. The contestants are to be judged in 3 categories. They are: appearance, performance and crowd response. Each category will be scored from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best score. Appearance includes general physical appearance, including costume. Performance includes dancing ability and poise. And the final category, crowd response is the measure of the audience's positive reaction to the dancer, including applause and tipping. The highest and lowest scores in each category will be thrown out for each dancer then the remaining scores will be totaled, and the dancer with the highest total score will be the winner.

In the case of a tie in the total score, the total score for appearance, then performance, then crowd response will be used to break the tie. If there is a tie in that category, the total score for performance, then audience reactions will be used.

Here are my notes and my perception of the entire contest. The ones with no score either left before their performance, or left after their performance but before the score tallying.

3rd place winner Jersey and Richard from Spearmint Rhino downtown LA Photo courtesy Private Dancer Magazine

After the contest, the score cards were collected and Andy and I went to the office to tally up the scores. Again, Richard wanted us to be present to avoid any questions of impropriety regarding the scores. This was turning into the Miss America pageant with all these precautions. Since I was the fastest typer, I volunteered to enter all the numbers into Excel for the tally with Richard's help. This was the most time consuming part because I'm no data entry clerk by any means. After everything was entered, Richard wanted to double check 3rd place because it was so close. We checked the next 3 closest ones and the results came back the same.

Andy and I came out and waited for Richard to come out with the papers for Jacklyn to read. All the contestants went on stage for the announcement which looked fantastic to see so many beautiful girls on stage at one time. Most of the crew left after that, except Steve who decided to try out some laps. All I know is he came out with a smile on his face. He claims that it was only 2 songs but it sure seemed like a hell of a long time.

This was the first dance contest that I was involved in where I didn't get stressed out at all. In fact, I actually enjoyed the experience. This was due to Richard and his crew at the Rhino who really worked hard to make this come out as smooth as possible. Thanks to the house dancers for putting up with a contest.  And thanks to everyone involved, especially the people that came out to the show. I hope everyone had as much fun as I did. See you at the next one.