Air Mobility Command Icon Competition
My company, Alex Vaughan Mobile Entertainment, helped produce an entertainment program for two evenings (Aug. 12 & 13) on the Dover Air Force Base. The Air Force’s Air Mobility Command has tasked each Base in their system with hosting a singing competition for Airmen & family members called the “AMC Icon”. It’s very similar to the “American Idol” TV program. My company provided all the stage and auditorium sound systems, music playback and stage lighting services for the event in the ballroom at the co-located clubs on DAFB called “The Landings”.
Contestants provided their own music tracks on CD or Karaoke CDs, and got on stage in front of an audience of about 100 airmen, family members, guests and 3 judges, and performed, singing and moving to the music. Our three judges are professors from Delaware State University’s Music and Drama department and judged each contestant on a laundry list of specific points having to do with vocal styling, performance quality, stage presence, phrasing and a lot more. I believe all three were introduced by The Landings club manager and Emcee, Frank Russo as “doctor”, so I have to believe they knew what they were looking at on the stage.
Tuesday evening was rehearsal night and my helper and I loaded-in and set-up the public address systems and stage lighting systems. We began at about 6PM Tuesday and helped the half dozen or so contestants get more comfortable with the stage, lighting and helped them rehearse their songs a couple of times. Wednesday afternoon, we arrived and took care of a couple of minor lighting glitches that had come up during the rehearsals, and began the show at about 6:30PM. Mr. Russo welcomed the audience, explained the rules and introduced the judges. He introduced the first of about a dozen contestants and we were off and running.
Each contestant did a very good job. Some were very strong singers, some were more reserved, but the whole program was very entertaining. We even had one lady who sang an original composition a capella. The judges made their determination without much fanfare and a winner was declared. I believe the winner from Dover goes to a regional competition and then the winners from that level go to Scott AFB for a final, national competition. The winner at Scott AFB gets to go on tour with the Air Forces “Tops in Blue” entertainment troupe for a year.
This program was such a departure from the normal DJ, Karaoke and Game entertainment my company provides most customers. I’m looking forward to doing more of the same type program in the future.