Sky Arts Guitar Star
Sky Arts is running their own guitar talent competition. If guitar stardom sounds like your cup of tea, you might want to check it out.
We’re on the hunt for amazing undiscovered guitarists to take part in a huge new talent search, and the winner will get to play on the main stage at Latitude festival this summer in front of 40,000 people. The competition is open to any age group and any genre (be it rock, jazz, classical, blues or anything else) and closed auditions will be filmed in London, Cardiff, Glasgow and Dublin in April.
You can find out more at the Sky Arts' Guitar Star page and at the application video on YouTube.
“Throughout the process, they’ll meet and be mentored by some of the biggest guitar stars in the world. The semi-finalists will hone their act in a recording studio, where they will work with a global guitar legend to perfect their sound.”
If you're a less rubbish guitarist than me (and I'm under no delusions, you definitely are), maybe you'll want to look into this. It sounds like it's going to be a show format that we're already familiar with—just with guitars—and some of the stages and prizes sound interesting.
The initial 'qualifiers' seem to be based on posting a video so I'm hopeful that means we'll avoid the schadenfreude that plagues the early stages of some TV talent competitions. It looks like contestants will have to work in genres other than their 'usual' each week so I think there's potential to hear some good players stretch themselves if this is handled well.
Bassists need not apply, though. Bummer.