It’s kind of fitting that there will be some Moonlight featured at this year’s Fargo Star finals.
Moonlight Aadland, a singer from Sisseton, S.D., is one of the two vocalists from the first wave of Fargo Star singers who were voted into the finals on Feb. 25 at The Hub.
She’ll be joined there by Shelby Heimbuch, the overall winner of the first heat of Fargo Star contestants. The two singers with the most votes in each Fargo Star grouping automatically qualify for the contest’s live finals where they will perform with the Post-Traumatic Funk Syndrome.
The second heat of Fargo Star voting starts today.
Heimbuch’s win was impressive as the Cogswell, N.D., native earned 18.7 percent of the more than 19,000 votes cast for Fargo Star contestants this past week.
Like past Fargo Star finalists, Heimbuch says she was helped out by her friends and family on Facebook who spread word about the video of her singing Sugarland’s “Stay.”
And, it’s kind of remarkable that Heimbuch had time to enter Fargo Star. The North Dakota State University sophomore has a triple major focusing in fashion merchandising, public relations and pre-law. She’s also a tour guide at NDSU and is honing her musical skills at the Elevate Rock School in Fargo.
And, for the record, Heimbuch’s mom urged her to enter Fargo Star.
It’s also a family affair for Aadland, who earned earned 16.5 percent of the votes and came back late Monday morning to move ahead of Mehgan Ashmore for the second qualifying spot.
Aadland says music is in her blood as she grew up singing with her father, her sister, her brother and even has a project with her husband. Of course, her four-year-old daughter Angelina also likes to sing.
These two women are the first to qualify for the Fargo Star finals. It’s up to you to tell us who will join them as the second wave of singers is up now at fargostar.areavoices.com. Your votes will tell us which two from that group will still be trying to claim the Fargo Star title.
And if you’re one of the first group singers who finished behind Heimbuch and Aadland, don’t get too bummed out. You still have a chance to make the finals.
After the next two waves of singers we’ll have one final week where all the singers who didn’t qualify for the finals vie for the final four spots at The Hub.
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I did make a tape at the forum site but it does not open up on your site
Gene, your video has been posted. Go to the top of this page and click the “The Singers – Week 2″ in the top right corner. You’ll be directed to a list of videos that includes your own.
His video is not found…
Bizarre. It’s on my screen when I go to that page. He’s the 12th name down, I click on it and I see the video.
Is his name omitted from your list or you can’t play the video on his personal page?
His name is 12th on my list but when i click on it it says no page found. Also, when i click on Maddy C. her info is on the page but no video. i have watched all the videos except those two.
They both work now! thank you!
Is it really about who has the best voice, or is it about who has the most friends and can press the button more times?
Lucy,
It’s about providing people a chance to select who they like the best – some people will select the singer they believe has the best voice, some people will select the singer they know. That’s the reality of public votes.
Hey Lucy………..I said a similar thing on
last week’s contest. No matter what Rob says,
it is UNFAIR to the performers–who are really
the best–but cannot “campaign” like some of
the College, or High School kids. I know 2
performers who recently moved to Fargo/Moorhead,
and don’t know many people, so, before the votes
are counted, I already know their Talent will be
over-looked…uh, I mean outnumbered.
Hello,
I don’t mean to come off as an unruly critic here, but I’d have to say that this competition is majorly flawed. First off, there should be a maximum to how many times people can vote, not the “vote as many times as you can” tactic that you have going on. Also, the first round should be decided by a panel of judges and then from there, the public should be able to vote. I listened to all of the Week One Singers, and I found that really; not to be mean to those who did qualify; but the best of the week did not make the cut. You had some really great talent in there (i.e. Jordan Gossman, April Nesemeier) but due to the lack of professionalism that this contest has, they were not showcased in a proper manner. You should have cut that 80 something singers into about 30 (decided first off by a panel of music knowledgeable judges) and then from there featured 10 a week, and included more about them in The Forum, being that this is a Forum Sponsored event. I do however respect the idea of this competition, but the kinks and flaws outweigh the benefit and to the singers who won week one, congratulations, but know that this was more of a “who can click the button the most times” contests as opposed to a singing contest.
Daniel,
Thanks for your comment. As I’ve written in previous posts, this idea of a panel of “experts” picking the singers isn’t the perfect answer to this situation. Whether the deciding factor comes from the public (which we’ve decided to go with) or from a panel of “experts” there will still be the inherent bias that each person takes with them into the decision making process. Defining talent is objective and some people will always disagree with different ideas of “talent.”
We like allowing every singer the chance to sing for the public and be voted on by the public. For some of them, it’s not about winning; it’s about sharing their voice with others.
I also have to disagree with the idea that this is simply a popularity contest. Yes, people who have more friends willing to vote for them have a dedicated “fan base.” But it’s not like the worst singers of each week (last week or throughout the years) are winning with their dedicated legion of fans/family flooding the voting forms. Good singers prevail. They might not be the singers you, or others, believe to be the “best.” But the people who voted for them probably would disagree with you.
In the past, we’ve had the voting set where each IP address was only allowed one vote. The flaw with that method is it doesn’t allow people to vote for more than one singer – a complaint we heard quite a bit. And, from experience, I feel that one vote per IP address method makes this more of a popularity contest as friends/family feel obligated to cast votes for the people they know. This method allows people to vote for friends/family but also cast votes for singers they enjoy.
As for winnowing the group down, that’s what we’re doing right now. This is the process we have selected, partially because it’s been effective through the years.
And, finally, I hate explaining this stuff because it feels like I’m defending it. But I’m here because there seems to be some minor swell of chatter this year about how the contest is impaired. I hope this chatter isn’t just sore losing.
I agree with Daniel. Only 1 vote should be counted per IP. What’s the point of voting for more than 1 person? All that does is cancel out your vote for the other people. It is about being fair too. People could vote more than once for themselves. What about the others trying to be fair and not cast thousands of votes for themselves. (ok, hundreds)There has to be voting guidelines in place for any voting places like this. If not, then Fargo Star is a joke!
Why isn’t all the tallies shown for each singer as well? Not just the 3 you pick because I believe that’s what you did.
There are voting guidelines. You might not favor the guidelines, but there are voting guidelines.
And, I’m not sure what you’re suggesting with your final point about the top three and vote tallies; but we don’t show the vote totals for all the singers, partly, because we don’t want to embarrass anyone who received very few votes.
It all for fun and entertainment. If someone didnt get picked this year then there is always next year.Thats gives people a whole year to campain themselves. I think this is a great oppotunity just to get your name out there. Try try and try again thats how most people make it. Thank you to the forum for all their hard work effort and time they put into this.
what time are the finals happening?
i know its at the hub, but i just didnt see a time.
thanks!
6 p.m. Feb. 25 at The Venue at The Hub.
How and when can we buy tickets to the final at The Hub?
That information will be coming soon.
I too agree with Daniel it should not be about how many clicks you get but the actual talent. There is a lot of talent that gets missed because of the way this contest is set up. When I first started to vote I could not get to where you could submit your vote it kept coming up as error, so since this was more of a contest of how many friends and family you have clikcing it is not fair to the contests that actually have the talent to be in the contest. It sure is a waste for the ones not picked when they are actully good. Maybe next year you can think of a better way for the contest.
Vicky,
I’m not sure how your trouble voting correlates to the idea that this about how many votes are coming from friends are family. But, if you are having trouble voting, check for updates in your browser or for Flash and check for firewall restrictions – some commercial networks (if you’re using a computer at your job) have limitations that may impede the voting process or the ability to watch videos on these sites.
I was ar home on my computer and I was not the only one having trouble getting into the site for voting on week 1. Thats beside the point it should be done by how good you are not how many clicks it takes to get to the finals.