1. What is the YouTube Cover Carnival?
The YouTube Cover Carnival is a Music For Pixels programme. It is a friendly competition and community-building initiative encouraging budding musicians everywhere to record their cover of a specific anti-Violence Against Women song chosen by The Pixel Project, upload it to YouTube to raise awareness about Violence Against Women, and submit it for a chance to win career-boosting prizes such as free song production/mixing/mastering and free digital music distribution.
2. When does the YouTube Cover Carnival take place?
We have the YouTube Cover Carnival twice a year:
- The Valentine YouTube Cover Carnival launches on 1 February and runs for 7 weeks until 21 March.
- The Fall 2012 YouTube Cover Carnival launches on 1 August and runs for 7 weeks until 21 September.
3. Who is eligible for the YouTube Cover Carnival?
We designed the YouTube Cover Carnival as a platform for up-and-coming music artistes to showcase their talent and have a chance to win some fabulous career-boosting prizes while helping us raise awareness about Violence Against Women.
The competition is open to all up-and-coming musicians:
With a YouTube account… and if you don’t already have a YouTube account, maybe this will give you an incentive to open one to spread the word about your music!.- With access to basic recording equipment that can record your voice and music fairly clearly because if you win, you are responsible for recording your voice and instrumentation and sending it to the producers who donate production session prizes to produce/mix/master.
- Who are vocalists because the song lyrics matter in sending the song’s empowering message to women and girls worldwide.
4. How does The Pixel Project select the song to be covered for the YouTube Cover Carnival?
Songs selected for the YouTube Cover Carnival fit into the Music For Pixels campaign mission to get YouTube musicians to perform positive, uplifting and empowering songs to boost the spirits of survivors and inspire their fans and global audiences to take action to stop VAW in their communities.
5. What are the prizes up for grabs in the YouTube Cover Carnival?
We put together prize packages for the top 3 winners which could range from free song production/mixing/mastering to pro bono digital music distribution and an opportunity to be featured on AHMIR’s very popular YouTube channel that has almost 350,000 subscribers.
For the full details on the prizes available, check out the Prizes page.
6. How are the winners selected?
We have 3 selection rounds:
- Semi-finals (Top 10)
- Finals (Top 5)
- Winners (Grand Prizes, 2nd Prize and 3rd Prize winners)
The 10 semi-finalists are selected by The Pixel Project’s Music For Pixels team and AHMIR from all the submitted covers.
The Top 5 finalists are voted from the 10 semi-finalists by a worldwide audience.
The final winners are then selected (again) by a panel of judges. Our previous panel of judges are YouTube music stars AHMIR, Ali Brustofski, J Rice and Lisa Lavie.
7. Is there anything else musicians need to keep in mind while putting together their YouTube Cover Carnival video?
We’d love for you to show us how creative you can get but please remember that due to the anti-violence work The Pixel Project does, all submitted videos must be family-friendly: No foul language, nudity or violent imagery/symbols (e.g. knives, guns, gore, blood etc) that may trigger PTSD in survivors of violence.
Any submitted video that contains any of the attributes listed above will be automatically disqualified.
Do also familiarise yourself with the contest rules before you create your submission.
8. How do I submit my YouTube Cover Carnival video?
It’s super easy! Just go to our submission page, make sure your video follows the guidelines, fill in the submission form and click the ‘submit’ button!
9. If I have independently covered the song before the contest, may I submit it?
Yes, you may submit your previous cover of either of the two songs. However, you will need to:
- Re-upload the video to ensure it falls within the contest submission period.
- Cut and paste the set text (see Step 3 on the submission page) into the ‘About’ session.
- Submit the re-uploaded video.
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To learn more about the YouTube Cover Carnival and how taking part in it helps to raise awareness about violence against women, check out our introduction page.
Please note that this contest is currently being revamped and will return in 2015.