Savannah Sawyer
Staff writer
Students have the opportunity to take a study break and share their talents with campus beginning next week. The auditions for Racers Got Talent, a campus-wide talent search, begin Tuesday.
Elizabeth Costy, coordinator of the event and marketing assistant for Racer Athletics, said the idea for the event came about when BB&T contacted the athletic department to be a sponsor last year.
Whoever wins the competition will take home a $500 cash prize from BB&T, Costy said. The prize will be rewarded during the final men’s basketball game on Feb. 18.
They are looking for all types of talents to compete in Racers Got Talent.
“You’ll always have your traditional bands, your singers, your guitar players, your dancers,” she said. “We have a comic, we’ve got somebody doing spoken word and I hope that people with other talents will sign up as well.”
There is plenty of room in the competition if your talent is singing or dancing, Costy said.
“There’s definitely room for more singers, more dancers, more musicians, but maybe we could get people who do hula hoops or we’re looking for everything that they have on America’s Got Talent but within reason,” she said. “Whatever people are good at, whatever can be performed, we want to see it here.”
The auditioning process is nothing to fret about, Kaitlin Cleven, junior from Greenleaf, Wis., said. Cleven participated in last year’s Racers Got Talent.
“The auditions were cool because you got to watch everyone perform, and then it was kind of fun to try and get online votes for your own performance,” she said.
Costy said this event is different from other talent competitions on campus.
“Other contests like Murray State Idol are out there but with Murray State Idol it’s only one person in the act and they only sing and only one person from (a residential college) can progress on,” she said.
“We could have three or four finalists from the same college. The narrow down process is a little different from that and you get to have all of these different acts. So it’s really a lot of fun and it’s different from other talent competitions on campus.”
It’s not all talent that makes a winner – it requires some good social networking skills as well, Costy said.
“It’s very easy to enter and it’s all about how well you do coupled with how many people you can get to vote for you because there’s some people who may not have the social network that other acts do,” she said. “It’s really a combination of talent and networking because the people that go to these games where the videos are broadcast, they’re not Murray State students but they see these acts and they vote for them because they want to be entertained by them at that live show in February.”
The competition is a great place for students to show off their talents.
Abigail Watkins, junior from Paducah, Ky., said she thinks it‘s a great idea.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity for the school’s most talented to be able to showcase their abilities,” she said.
There will be 18 acts altogether, 16 of them chosen by a panel of three judges and two of them chosen by voting on Facebook for Fan Favorites.
All 18 acts are filmed and then presented at each of the men’s basketball games beginning Nov. 11.
All videos are posted online and will eventually determine the top two acts in the competition. These acts will perform live at the Feb. 11 game and online voting will determine the ultimate winner.
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