Terms & Conditions
GENERAL
1. The Lichfield Festival (the Festival) welcomes entries to the Midlands Choir of the Year Competition (the Competition) fromamateur adult choirs and singing groups, singing any type of repertoire. This includes mixed, male or female voice only choirs/groups, singing a variety of music including (by way of example only) classical, gospel, rock, jazz and/or barbershop repertoire.
QUALIFYING REQUIREMENTS
2. For the purposes of the Competition, an amateur choir or singing group is defined as one which rehearses on a regular basis and in which no member, with the exception of conductor, MD and/or accompanist, receives professional fees for singing in the choir/group. Choirs/groups should not have any commercially available recordings distributed by a major record label and they should not have had music released in any of the official commercial charts.
The final decision on whether a choir or group is amateur or not rests with the Festival.
If you are in any doubt about your amateur status, please contact the Festival for clarification before entering the Competition (via info@mcoty.org).
3. Choirs and groups entering the Competition must be based and rehearse regularly in a county within the Midlands. For the purposes of the Competition, qualifying counties are (in alphabetical order):
Derbyshire, Herefordshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands and Worcestershire.
The final decision on whether a choir qualifies geographically for the Competition rests with the Festival.
If you are in any doubt about your choir’s home county, please contact the Festival for clarification before entering the Competition (via info@mcoty.org).
4. Choirs should consist of singers who are aged 18 years and above – as of May 1st 2026.
5. The maximum number of choir or group members is 50: we cannot accept entries from choirs that exceed this number due to staging restrictions.
6. Staff of the Festival are not permitted to participate in the Competition.
7. Previous overall winners may enter the Competition in subsequent years, but not in the Competition immediately following their original win. There is no restriction on subsequent entries for winners of the Audience Prize.
HOW TO ENTER
8. The deadline for receipt of applications for the Competition is March 1st 2026 (please see the Competition Application Form for full details, available via our website www.mcoty.org).
Entry to the Competition is made by
a) completing and submitting the Competition Application Form, together with
b) a recording of an MP3 or MP4 of 2 pieces (any repertoire) which should be no longer than 6 minutes in total. MP3 recordings may be sent directly as attachments with email application; MP4s should be sent via link only (eg Dropbox) or WeTransfer (or equivalent).
COMPETITION STAGES AND REPERTOIRE REQUIREMENTS
9. There are three stages to the Competition:
a) Entry Stage – by email: see Application Form for full details and section 7 above. Closing date – March 1st
There are no restrictions on type or style of music/repertoire, but please note that backing tracks are not permitted at any stage of the live Competition.
The entry MP3 or MP4 files must be clearly titled with the name of the choir/group and must contain only the performances being submitted for this Competition.
All application recordings received by the entry deadline will be listened to by a specially-appointed selection panel. The panel will select a maximum of 16 (sixteen) choirs/groups who will be invited to sing in the live Semi-Final Stage at in Lichfield on either Saturday May 9th or Sunday May 10th 2026. The Festival will use its best endeavours to accommodate availability issues at this stage.
Applications will be judged on the quality of the singing and performance, not on the technical quality of the recording.
Once a choir/group has been selected to sing in the Semi-Final, they will be notified by email and by telephone. All successful Semi-Finalists will be informed as soon as practicable after the Application Stage, and by no later than March 31st 2026.
b) Semi-Final Stage – Saturday May 9th / Sunday May 10th 2026
Choirs/groups invited to perform in the Semi-Finals will sing live before the Competition judging panel (the Judges) on Saturday May 9th or Sunday May 10th 2026.
For the live Semi-Final, choirs/groups must prepare
i) a contrasting programme of maximum 10 minutes in total length,
ii) to include a minimum of 2 pieces.
All accompanied works must be accompanied by piano only. A piano will be provided by the Festival. Please note that the Festival will not provide or pay for accompanists.
Choirs that successfully reach the Semi-Final must perform without microphones or other technical support.
Semi-finalists may be approached by the Festival and the Competition for press and publicity purposes in advance of the Semi-Final. The choice of any Semi-Finalists contacted for these purposes is entirely at the discretion of the Festival and the Competition.
Please note that the panel reserves the right to cancel the Semi-Final Stage and, instead, to invite a maximum of 6 (six) selected choirs directly to the Final.
c) Final – Sunday July 12th 2026/Lichfield Cathedral
Finalists will be notified at the completion of the Semi-Final Stage as soon as reasonably practicable and at the discretion of the Judges, but by no later than May 18th 2026.
All Finalists (up to a maximum of 6 choirs/groups) will then be invited to sing live in the Competition Final which will be held in Lichfield Cathedral on the evening of Sunday July 12th 2026.
Finalists must prepare
i) a contrasting programme of between 12 minutes and 15 minutes total length,
ii) to include a minimum of 3 pieces (only 2 of which may be repeated from the Semi-Final repertoire).
As with the Semi-Final, all accompanied works must be accompanied by piano only. A piano will be provided by the Festival. Please note that the Festival will not provide or pay for accompanists.
Choirs that successfully reach the Final must perform without microphones or other technical support, although the Festival reserves the right to use ambient microphones for the Final in Lichfield Cathedral, for the benefit of the audience.
PRIZES
10. As part of the Final, one choir/group will be selected as Overall Winner by the Judges. In the event of the Judges not being able to reach a decision, the Chair of the Judges will have the final say as to which choir/group will be the winner. An Audience Prize will also be awarded.
Prizes will be awarded as follows:
a) Overall Winner
i) a cheque for £1,000,
ii) the Competition Trophy (to be held for a 24-month period), and
iii) an invitation to perform at the Lichfield Festival in 2027.
b) Audience Prize
The Audience Prize will be voted upon by the attending, ticket-holding Final audience only (one vote per audience member). All elegible votes will be collected and counted ahead of the announcement of the Overall Winner.
The choir/group with the most audience votes will be awarded a cheque for £500.
(Please note: the Overall Winner may also win the Audience Prize.)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
11. Any information provided as part of any application will be collected and registered by the Competition and the Festival only for the purposes of administering the Competition.
We will not store or use your details for any other purpose and will not transfer your details to any other third party without contacting you first: please see our Privacy Policy below.
12. Full details on how to enter the Competition are available on the Competition website www.mcoty.org. Here, you will be able to download the Competition Application Form and the Competition Terms and Conditions.
13. The closing date for email and postal entries is midnight on March 1st 2026.
14. The title of ‘Midlands Choir of the Year’ is held for two years only.
15. Entry for the Competition implies acceptance of the present rules without possibility of the right of recourse. The decision of the Judges is final, without appeal, and no subsequent correspondence on their decisions will be entered into. In case of any dispute concerning matters of eligibility, or interpretation of these rules, the decision of the Festival shall be final. The Festival is under no obligation to name the shortlisting panel or the number of entries received.
16. The Festival reserves the right to replace choirs whose entry (or any of its members) breaches any of these Terms & Conditions or for any other reason beyond its control.
17. The Festival reserves the right to extend the deadline for entries or to cancel this Competition or amend these terms and conditions at any stage, if, in its opinion, entries do not reach the required standard, or if deemed necessary in its opinion and if circumstances arise outside its control.
18. The Festival reserves the right to sell audience tickets to the Final in Lichfield Cathedral.
19. The Festival may allow the taking of official photographs and/or video recordings at any point during the Semi-Final and Final and reserves the right to use any photographs taken on its own or the Competition website and social media platforms and/or for post-Competition publicity with third parties.
20. All Final performances will be live-relayed on screens within the Cathedral, for the benefit of the audience. The feed will be recorded by Festival for archive purposes and the Festival reserves the right to use a maximum 5-minute publicity clip (of each entrant) for future publicity purposes.
21. Entrants must agree to take part in any reasonable post-Competition publicity, if required.
22. Entries must not infringe the rights of any other party. The Festival accepts no liability if entrants ignore these rules and entrants agree to fully indemnify the Festival against any claims by any third party arising from any breach of these rules.
23. The Festival cannot accept any responsibility whatsoever for any technical failure or malfunction or any other problem with any server, internet access, postal system or otherwise which may result in any entry being lost or not properly registered or recorded. Proof of sending is not proof of receipt.
24. The Competition Terms and Conditions are governed by the laws of England and Wales.