After much discussion, the following points have been agreed regarding the running of a virtual festival in 2021.

1. No marks will be awarded but a winner will be announced for each class.  Adjudicators will categorise all performers, so that appropriate certificates can be awarded.  (Honours, First Class, Merit and Performance)
   In the instance of classes where the winner might qualify for the Larg or Premier class, the adjudicator would need to be confident that the winner would have achieved a mark of 87, before announcing that they are eligible for these classes.  No trophy would be awarded to a winner who did not achieve a First Class category.
2. All performers will be able to choose to perform unaccompanied, with a backing track or with their own accompanist.  Where a backing track is supplied with the book, that would be what would be used.  Otherwise, we are arranging to have our accompanists record the piano accompaniment.  In the case of the Disney classes, if anyone requires these, they will need to request a backing track.  Links to audio files will be placed on the website and, if a file is not there, people will need to request that we record it for them.  

For Own Choice classes, including Disney, a deadline will need to be set for performers requesting a backing track.  See below for deadlines.

• Performers will be asked to create a video recording on a mobile phone or similar and, to allow all performers to be judged on a ‘level playing field’, videos should not be digitally enhanced.  Performers are advised to perform to the camera.  Adjudicators would be advised not to judge the quality of the video but to judge the quality of the performance and ignore the quality of the recording.  Videos should be transferred to the festival via the festival email address using OneDrive (with the option of using Wetransfer for anyone without OneDrive), and should be labelled with the class number and the performer’s name.  These videos will be destroyed by the festival within 7 days of the end of the festival.  Deadlines for submission of videos will be posted on the website.  Also see below for deadlines.
• If choirs or any other ensembles submit videos, under current restrictions, they would not be permitted to perform together live, so we would accept ‘collaborative’ videos.  Certain standard regulations may be suspended in order to facilitate performance.
• Where a performer has qualified for one of the Final Night competitions, they will have the option to submit a fresh video.  In the case of the Final Night singing medal classes, another video will be required for the second song.
• The adjudicator will be sent a private link to a compiled video for each class, which they will view at home, writing their written adjudication between each performance, stopping the video to do so, and, at the end of the class they would enter their results on the ‘crit-sheet’ (categories only) and indicate the winner.  After that, they would create a video of their verbal adjudication of that class, labelling it with the class number.  When these videos have been sent to us, they will be included with the performers’ videos and the whole thing will be streamed on our website, via a video-sharing platform.  These streamed videos would remain available through the festival website. The adjudicator would be able to view the performances in the week prior to the planned festival date, though, depending on adjudicator availability, they might not do so until the planned festival date.  Once the adjudicator has sent the ‘crit-sheets’ back to us, we shall print off the certificates and send them all out together.
• As part of the preparation for our virtual festival, we shall ask our adjudicators if they would be willing to record a brief video for us to share with potential performers, via various platforms, in order to create enthusiasm.
• Although any potential Young Ambassadors will not be able to steward at the 2021 festival, they can and should be encouraged to fulfil the Support and Promote categories.  The only qualification criterion is that they must have, in some capacity, previously participated in the festival themselves.  If they can persuade a new participant to enter and then support and encourage their preparation in advance of doing their recording, that would fulfil the Support category.  If they do more general spreading of the word about the festival, that would fulfil the Promote category.  After that, all they need to do is tell us about it, so that they qualify for a Young Ambassadors Award.  They can also put the time they spent in doing that towards a Saltire Award.
• Remuneration for accompanists and adjudicators may need to be enhanced to recognise the extra work that they are having to do.  There will be additional costs for postage and for the management of the various videos.  
• Deadlines for requesting backing tracks will be fourteen days prior to the deadline for submission of performance videos.
  
  Deadlines for submission of performance videos:
  Gaelic classes – 1^st March
  Percussion classes – 2^nd March
  Speech classes – 4^th March
  Pipe band solos – 4^th March
  Dance – 6^th March
• All other classes – 8^th March