Rules and FAQ

Any DJ, solo or as a back-to-back (B2B) team of two. You must register first. There are only 20 candidate spots, first come, first served, and each act can enter once.

Yes. Registration is the first step. It is free, takes about a minute and does not need a finished mix. A registration is not complete on its own: it arrives as pending and a person on the team approves it, and only an approved registration can submit a mix. The 20 spots are counted in approvals, not attempts. Once mix submissions open, only registered DJs can submit, using the same email they registered with. If you miss registration, you are out for this season. Register here.

So every entry gets a proper listen. Each mix is 30 minutes and every judge scores every act, so a capped field is what makes full, fair judging possible. Registrations are reviewed and approved by hand in the order they arrive. Registration also closes on its own date, and whichever comes first ends it. The cap counts approved registrations, so a pending one has not taken a spot yet.

Your 30-minute mix as an MP3, uploaded directly on the Submit page, up to 120MB, straight from your browser.

Strictly house, start to finish. Any house subgenre is fine: deep house, tech house, progressive house, afro house, tropical house, future house, bass house, electro house, funky or soulful house, disco house, melodic house, UK or bassline house, acid house and gospel house. If it is not house, it is not eligible.

No. We do not accept streaming links of any kind, including SoundCloud, Mixcloud and YouTube. Upload the actual MP3 on the Submit page. That keeps every entry to the same 30:00 and 120MB standard.

Yes. Mix submissions have a hard close date, shown on the Submit page. Nothing gets in after that.

Two parts make one combined score per act. Our judges score every entry (60%) and the public vote counts for the other 40%. The top 8 by that combined score play the live leg nights.

A small panel picked by the Atherly's After Dark team. Judge scores are entered privately and stay hidden until results are revealed, so they cannot be lobbied.

No. Every entry is judged and voted on anonymously. Once your mix is approved, it appears under a random label such as "Entry 7" on the Vote page and in the judges' scoring portal, never under your act name. Judges see the same anonymous label fans do. Identities are revealed once the top 8 are set.

1. Track selection
2. Mixing skill
3. Energy and flow
4. Originality
5. Performance readiness
6. Sound quality

The same six things apply every time. See the full breakdown on the page on what the judges score. Judges score them online first. The same panel holds every live round after that to the same standard.

The crowd keeps every stage honest to the fans who are watching. The judges keep the result from coming down to who has the biggest group chat. The same 60/40 blend decides every round, and only the way the crowd's 40% is counted changes. In the online round it is the online vote. At a live round (a semi-final, a Leg Final or The Coronation) it is the room: a decibel reader takes the peak of each act's roar, one act at a time, from one fixed spot that never moves all season. The Voting chapter explains how a roar is measured.

No. Crowd votes, star ratings and judge scores all stay private while voting is open, so nobody can be swayed by a running tally. The real combined top 8 is revealed once judging ends and results are published.

No, neither can. Judges already carry 60% of every act's score through their own portal. A registered DJ voting on the field they compete in is a conflict of interest. Both are blocked automatically, using the email you registered or judge with, so it does not rely on honesty. The crowd vote belongs to the crowd.

Yes. DJs can post their link and ask people to listen and vote. That is expected, and it is free promotion for the season. A DJ just cannot cast a vote themselves, as above. Stacking the count with extra email addresses is not allowed (see the next question).

The same email address can only vote once, and a second attempt is rejected. That does not fully stop someone determined to use five different email addresses, and nothing on the open web fully does. It does stop casual re-voting and scripted abuse. We guard against the obvious abuse and do not claim a system that cannot be beaten.

It is the same 40%, counted differently: online it is your vote, in the room it is your voice. Once both acts in a match have finished, the music drops and the host raises the first act. The countdown runs three, two, one, and the room roars for a steady ten-count while a decibel reader captures the peak, the loudest instant and not the average. The meter is reset, the room settles back to baseline, and the same thing runs again for the second act. The higher peak takes the crowd's share.

By never changing how it is measured. The meter sits at one fixed spot at front of house, roughly the middle of the crowd. The spot is chosen before the season starts and never moved. The meter, the ten-count and the host's cadence are the same every time, all season. The meter is cleared and the room settles between the two acts, so the roars never bleed into each other. If the two peaks land within the margin, it is a tie, and both acts get one sudden-death five-second roar to settle it. If that still lands inside the margin, the panel makes the call.

Partly, and the judges' 60% is there to balance that. A big crew can bring you the roar, but it cannot carry a round on its own. Bringing your people is part of the sport and a real advantage. It was never meant to be the whole result.

The top 8 acts by combined score, judges (60%) plus crowd vote (40%), once both close. They are the top 8 DJs who play the live leg nights.

The leg and semi-final slots are set live online, with no travel. The 8 DJs are revealed one at a time, and each is placed into a leg and a semi-final slot. Nobody knows their leg or their opponent until the running order is set.

Then the top 8 DJs play live at the leg nights, four on each night. Each leg has two semi-finals, and the two semi-final victors meet in a Leg Final. Each night crowns a Leg Champion, and the two Leg Champions meet at The Coronation.

The top 8 DJs play live at the leg nights. Here is what is at stake:

1. Take your semi-final and you are through to that leg's Final. The semi-final has no cash on its own.
2. Take your Leg Final and you are that leg's champion: TT$2,000 cash on the spot, plus a seat at The Coronation.
3. The Coronation champion takes the crown, TT$4,000 cash, a surprise live entertainer joining their final set, professional video content of the night, and the bragging rights that come with it.

For this season, yes. Keep making mixes. The online round runs again ahead of next season.

We collect what we need to run this event. It is never sold or used for anyone's marketing. You can ask at any time what we hold on you, and you can ask for your personal information to be removed from My Account. Some of it is public and some of it is permanent, and the full notice says which.

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