Battle of the Buskers () is a singing reality competition organized by Mediacorp Channel 8. The season premiered on its Mediacorp streaming website meWATCH and its YouTube channel on 23 July 2023, and the finals were held on 5 November 2023. The competition were held across 11 locations islandwide beginning at Hougang Central Hub and ending with CQ @ Clarke Quay Fountain Square.
Musicians The ETC 闲杂人等, which consist of 46-year old Tristan Ong and 47-year old Joey Wee, were the winners of "Battle of the Buskers"; 35-year old busker Evan Goh and friends T Junction 红绿灯, which consist of 30-year old Alina Mak and 28-year old Lim Jia Rui, finished as co-runners-up.
Development.
First teased during the "Star Awards 2023" show, the competition was announced on 8 May 2023 and auditions are opened on that date until May 26. Buskers with a valid identification issued by the National Arts Council of Singapore are eligible to take part. Acts can either be a solo act or as a group, and has no age limits. According to the producers and again in the final broadcast, 27 buskers have been selected for the final rounds of audition before narrowing it down to 16.
Contestants.
A list of 16 busking acts were announced on 13 July 2023, which feature 10 groups and six solo acts, including its youngest-ever contestant in Singapore's reality competition history. The list are as follows:
Key:
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Live shows summary.
Results summary.
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Live Busking rounds.
For the next four Sundays from 23 July to 13 August, four acts would compete in one of four rounds, each with a designated location across Singapore. Each busker had to sing two songs (with no particular genre) for this round, along with an interlude between songs to entertain the audience. QR codes directing to vote for the busker will be provided during the performance. Voting lines open during the episode's livestream at 4 p.m. until 11.59 p.m., which requires an active meCONNECT account in order to vote. Closed captioning for meWATCH are later added for past livestreams after voting period ended. A second round of voting for all buskers reopen on 14 August from 4.30 pm for 24 hours. Only public votes decided solely on the outcome itself; the ten acts with the most votes after four weeks will advance to the quarterfinals, which were announced on 22 August.
Color key:
Week 1 (23 July).
The first round was held at Hougang Central Hub, located nearby Hougang Mall.
Week 2 (30 July).
The second round was held at Paya Lebar Quarter (PLQ). Ng's father Eric appeared as an audience member.
Week 3 (6 August).
The third round was held at Waterway Point at Punggol. Part III's member Tan Yi Zhen was absent on that day of performance due to illness.
Week 4 (13 August).
The fourth and final round was held at Westgate, Singapore.
Elimination rounds.
The top ten buskers will compete in five weeks of elimination rounds beginning 23 September to determine the winner of the competition. Unless otherwise stated, each episode's pre-recorded live-stream begin at 4.30 p.m.; similar to the Busking rounds, voting opens at the start of livestream until 11.59 p.m. (except for the Final details below), and requires a valid meCONNECT account to cast their vote. Like the Busking rounds, captions are added progressively after voting lines are closed. A two-part post-produced version of the competition, with never-before-seen behind-the-scenes and post-competition footage and its results, would broadcast on Channel 8 on Wednesday and Thursday 8 pm (only Chinese captions are provided).
Introduced as a twist during the elimination rounds (打赏战币), at any time during each of the performance, audience with a liking of it are allowed to go to the booth to collect a gold coin and then tip it to the suitcase. Each audience member was entitled to one coin per busker, and they can either choose to tip it or not for a particular singer. These battle coins would be used to "purchase" songs from a set of its songlist and determine their performance order. The number of coins obtained for each busker, along with the results for the week's performance were announced on the Thursday's episode.
Top 10 showcases (23 September).
The top ten performed its exhibition performances at Plaza Singapura. The first round of the voting took place, and votes from that week were carried over to the next week quarterfinals. While this week was a non-elimination, the bottom three in terms on the public vote were announced during the Thursday's episode (highlighted in blue).
Quarterfinal 1 (30 September).
The first quarterfinal took place at Funan. Unlike the first week, buskers are not known on how many coins they earned during the performance, but instead being informed on the outcome of the results. The two buskers accumulating the fewest votes cast from the two weeks of shows would face elimination.
The songs are determined by the buskers through a format similar to auction sniping, and the song is given to the busker with the highest bid among other buskers who were interested in performing said song. The remaining coins will determine the busker's priority on allocating their order of performance; ties are broken by number of remaining coins, then the accumulated number of coins.
Quarterfinal 2 (7 October).
Based on the number of coins obtained from the first quarterfinal, the busker will pair with another busker to perform at either one of four locations indicated below. Votes for the pair of buskers are unified, and the pair accumulating the fewest votes will be eliminated on the conclusion of this episode. Guest hosts and YES 933 radio anchors Zhu Zeliang and Lin Pin Juan were live at Bugis+. Unlike the first two weeks, there was only one post-produced episode airing on Wednesday.
Semifinal (14 October).
The semifinalists compete at ION Orchard for a place in the final, singing on both local mandopop and xinyao songs. In addition to the public vote, the semifinal also features a judging panel, which consists of Peter Li, Hong Junyang and Ling Kai, in-lieu on the battle coins. The ratio for public vote-judge's score is 30%-70%, and the busker with the lowest overall score will be eliminated.
In the Wednesday's episode, buskers had to agree an amount of coins to be split among their partners. Unlike the first quarterfinal, the songlist (for the local mandopop songs) available by auction are referred by a part of the song's lyrics and not its actual name. Afterwards, priority for allocating order of performance starts on the busker with the least coins remaining, but subsequent buskers can override the order of other buskers if they desire. In the Thursday's episode, it was revealed that each song also contain another songlist of three songs (for xinyao songs) for the busker to choose from based on which song they picked.
Final (5 November).
The final took place at CQ @ Clarke Quay Fountain Square, and the broadcast and voting began at 7.30pm instead. Similar to the semifinals, there was a judging panel which also contributed to the outcome of the competition. The judges for this episode are Jim Lim, Pakho Chau and Kay Huang. A pre-show leading up to the final was broadcast on 1 November.
The voting period for each round lasted until the end of all performances during the second round (votes cast in the first round froze at 8.30pm, and closed at 9.20pm); both the judges and public vote have equal say, and the top three buskers with the highest overall score at the end of the first round would advance to the second round to vie for the winner, determined by a combination of overall scores from both rounds. The priority to determine the performance order is based on the finalist's cumulative number of coins; however, they are not allowed to change their order upon making their decision, nor changing the order for other buskers. Goh received the most number of coins with 198, followed by The ETC's 178, Papaya Duck's 166, T Junction's 163, and Part III's 150.
References.
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