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Contestants are judged on the performance of two songs in two
separate rounds, each lasting 60 seconds, with the singers
pretending to play an imaginary guitar.
Passion is a must, but much of the rest is up to the contenders.
Props and costumes are allowed, but backup bands and real
instruments are off-limits.
The two-hour final pits last year's winner, Canada’s Zachary
“Ichabod Fame” Knowles, against eight national champions and
seven contenders who emerged from the qualifying rounds. The
challengers include U.S. champion Saladin “Six String Sal”
Thomas and German champion Patrick “Van Airhoven” Culek.
The winner is chosen by a five-member jury of performing arts
professionals. Whoever is crowned will win an actual guitar — a
“Flying Finn” made by Finnish guitar maker Matti Nevalainen.
The championships were first held in 1996. Their organizers
state that “according to the competition ideology, wars will
end, climate change will stop and all bad things will vanish
when all the people in the world play the air guitar.”
Contestants may, according to the rules, “use an electric or an
acoustic air guitar, or both.” The jury takes into account
“originality, the ability to be taken over by the music, stage
presence, technical merit, artistic impression and Airness.”
Each jury member scores the performances with a mark between 4.0
and 6.0. Each contestant’s scores from the first and second
round — the first with a song chosen by the performer and the
second with one chosen by the organizers — are added together
and the candidate with the highest total score wins.
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