Ozark Blues Society - Annual Blues Challenge

The Ozark Blues Society of Northwest Arkansas is seeking submissions for its Annual Blues Challenge, where the two winning blues acts will be sent, expenses paid, to compete in the International Blues Challenge in Memphis.

This two day, intense blues music competition will take place on Wednesday, October 24th and Thursday, October 25th, at George’s Majestic Lounge on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Both solo/duo artists and bands will compete, and one winner from each category will be chosen to go to Memphis.

Bands from any area outside Northwest Arkansas, or from any other blues society, are encouraged to send their submissions. Ozark Blues Society wants to find the performers who are most likely to make a great showing in the Memphis competition, no matter where they’re from.

For the five years that Ozark Blues Society has been participating in the International Blues Challenge (IBC), two of its bands have made it to the Final 10 – Kory Montgomery and The Eoff Brothers. That’s a statistic that beats all odds, since there are over 125 bands that compete each year. Ozark Blues Society closely follows the rules and judging criteria of the Blues Foundation in order to increase the likelihood of its winning band to make a great showing in Memphis. For those who don’t know, IBC is blues’ biggest event and is attended by blues concert promoters, club owners, record label producers, and blues society members and blues fans from all over the world.

All the bands chosen to compete in the Ozark Blues Society event will follow the rules laid out by the Blues Foundation, including OBS taking submissions exclusively through Sonicbids.

All submissions will be juried for blues content and musicianship, and up to 10 acts per night will be chosen to compete in Fayetteville. The judges’ panel in Fayetteville will be a combination of blues club owners, record producers, radio programmers, concert promoters, board members of other blues societies outside of Northwest Arkansas.

In order to continue to raise funds for the bands’ expenses in Memphis, several fundraising concerts and events will go on through the rest of the year. The winning bands will “sing for their supper” for a fundraiser later in the year, and different opportunities to support the society’s efforts will be announced up until January.