How Online Talent Contests Are Judged on Talentino Live

Why mix judges and the audience?

Pure public voting tends to reward whoever has the biggest following. Pure panel judging can feel closed and arbitrary. Talentino combines the two equally so that a performer needs both genuine quality and real audience appeal — and so that a talented newcomer with few followers still has a fair chance.

The judge score (50%)

After a contest's voting closes, the top entries form a shortlist (up to 25 entries, plus any Judges' Pick wildcards). The assigned judges then score each shortlisted entry on four criteria, each marked from 1 to 10:

Technique — 30%. The craft itself: pitch and breath for singers, timing and control for dancers, voice and diction for actors, composition and finish for artists, camera and sound for filmmakers.

Creativity — 25%. Originality, interpretation and personal choices.

Expression / stage presence — 25%. Emotion, connection with the audience and presence on camera.

Overall impact — 20%. How memorable the entry is as a whole.

Each judge's four marks are combined using those weights. When four or more judges score an entry, the highest and lowest judge totals are dropped before averaging, so one unusually generous or harsh judge cannot decide the result.

Blind judging and conflicts

Judges do not see vote counts while they score, which keeps popularity from influencing their marks. A judge who has coached a contestant in the past 12 months through the Talentino Academy cannot score that contestant — the system blocks it automatically.

The audience score (50%)

The audience half is built from three signals collected while the contest is open:

Verified votes — 40%. Votes are scaled on a logarithmic curve against the most-voted entry in the same contest. That means the first votes matter a lot and very large totals have diminishing returns, which limits the advantage of huge followings.

Star ratings — 40%. Viewers rate entries from 1 to 10. Ratings are averaged with a fairness adjustment that starts every entry at the contest's average (equivalent to 20 ratings), so a handful of early ratings cannot produce an extreme score.

Watch-through — 20%. The share of signed-in viewers who watched at least 75% of a video (or stayed at least five seconds on a photo). It rewards entries that genuinely hold attention.

Verified voting rules

Every vote comes from an account with a verified mobile number, one account per phone. Each account can vote once per entry per day (India time) and up to 10 times per contest per day. Votes are only accepted while the contest is open, and you cannot vote for yourself. Automatic checks flag entries that receive more than half their votes in any one-hour window from accounts created in the previous 24 hours, and administrators can void suspicious votes.

Finalists, wildcards and the live finale

Alongside the top-scoring entries, judges can add a Judges' Pick wildcard and the audience's favourite can earn a People's Choice wildcard. The top five finalists can then perform in a live online finale. Every entrant receives a scorecard showing how their score was built.

What this means for you

Focus first on the quality of your performance — it drives the judge half and ratings. Make the first seconds strong for watch-through. Then share your entry steadily so real supporters can vote once a day. Our guides to winning singing contests and getting more votes fairly go into the practical detail.