This is a list of rules and scheduling details for the NGUAC 2020, an annual audio contest here on Newgrounds. If anything is unclear, please leave a comment below.

TL;DR: DEFINITELY DON’T DO THESE THINGS

• Submit a piece to the Knock-out or Final Round that you worked on before the round started
• Submit a collaboration as your tryout piece when you’re not on a team
• Update your track in the project system during the judging phase
• Submit your track after the deadline
• Use copyrighted or stolen content

ALL THE RULES

SECTION I: General track requirements

1.If you are entering as a solo artist (i.e., not part of a team), YOU CANNOT SUBMIT A COLLABORATION to the competition. If you are entering as a team, you cannot collaborate with anyone besides your teammate. Having someone sing or play an instrument for you is fine, but you must still compose the music and lyrics yourself AND mix/master the piece. Your singer/instrumentalist is not allowed to improvise for your track.

2. You may only submit one song per round.

3. The pieces you make for the competition should be full-length songs, of any musical genre you want. No comedy pieces, sound effect reels, or voice acting.

4. You may have pre-packaged loops and samples in your piece, but overusing presets may compromise your track’s originality. Songs that use full-length acapella vocal tracks or drum loops with little modification - even if they’re not copyrighted - will be accepted on a case-by-case basis.

5. For tryouts, it's okay to submit covers, arrangements, remixes, remakes, mash-ups, and pieces with samples downloaded from the internet.

6. In the Knock-out and Final rounds, covers, arrangements, VIPs, mash-ups, remakes, and remixes are not allowed. 

7. YOU MUST SUBMIT YOUR SONG TO NEWGROUNDS and follow the NG Audio Portal regulations. No submissions from Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Spotify, etc. will be accepted! Also, make sure you actually press “publish audio” - the judges can’t access your piece if it’s left unpublished in the project system. 

8. You may submit a song to the NGUAC that you had previously submitted to another contest on NG, like the NGADM or AIM.

9. In order to submit a track, post a link to your song in this forum thread. You can also change it by CLEARLY stating in the thread that you’d like to change it, but only during the submission phase.

SECTION II: Schedule-related rules

1. The contest has 3 distinct rounds (tryouts, a knock-out round, and finals) each consisting of a submission phase of roughly 2 weeks and a judging phase of 3-7 days. 

2. There is a separate forum thread for each round. Participants submit their songs by posting a link to the song in the corresponding forum thread.  

3. PARTICIPANTS MAY NOT start working on their Knock-out or Final Round tracks until the corresponding forum thread is posted. You also can’t create samples for the purpose of using them in a Knock-out or Final round piece before that corresponding round begins.

4. No one is allowed to update their track (i.e., replace or delete the audio file in Newgrounds' Project System) during the judging phases until results are released for the following round.

5. All submission phases close at 23:59 (11:59 p.m.) Eastern Daylight Time on the final date of each phase (see the schedule below). Submission phases open as soon as the forum thread for that round is up.

6. Immediately after the tryout submission phase, the participants will be grouped evenly based on their fan totals. This ensures that the best of the “Underdogs” advance as far as possible without directly competing with more experienced and knowledgeable musicians. It’s kinda the premise of the entire competition.

7. Late submissions will be accepted until 24 hours after the deadline with a “tax” on your score, according to the following paradigm: 

Hours late === percentage off final score

<1 === 5% 

1-3 === 10% 

3-6 === 15%

6-24 === 20%

>24 === 100%

If you’re, say, EXACTLY 3 hours late, your submission will fall in the “3-6 hours” category. 

SECTION III: Teams

1. Participants are allowed to enter the competition as a team of two.

2. If the members of your team would otherwise be placed in different groups as solo artists, the team will be placed in the group corresponding to the highest fan total among its members (e.x., if one member has 20 fans and the other has 60, and the All Stars each have 50 fans or more, the team will compete in the All Stars group).

3. Both members of a team must contribute to all of the pieces submitted as part of the contest. You can't just enter the contest as a "team," submit a collaboration to the Tryout phase, and then make a track as a solo artist in the next round. If you want the advantages of being on a team, then it really does have to be a joint effort.

4. Teams of more than 2 are not permitted, even if your band of 3+ members shares one Newgrounds account.

SECTION IV: Code of conduct

1. If you have any complaints about judges’ scores or the contest in general, please PM THEM instead of getting combative in the thread. Standard BBS and Audio Portal rules ALWAYS apply.

2. The judges give participants a score out of 10 by considering a variety of parameters. These parameters may vary by judge. Scores are averaged among the judges to determine who advances to future rounds. Most rounds, a given judge won’t score all of the competitors; we’ll divide it up by group. 

SECTION V: Prizes

1. Prizes will include forum signatures for the top 3 finishers boasting of their success in the competition, as well as spots on the front page of the Audio Portal the week after the competition.

Contest Schedule:

Phase - Start date - End date

Tryout submission - 7/10 - 8/1

Tryout judging - 8/2 - 8/10

K-O submission - 8/10 - 8/24

K-O judging - 8/25 - 8/29

Final submission - 8/29 - 9/12

Final judging - 9/13 - 9/16

Thank you in advance for following the rules. Good luck and (most importantly) have fun! :D