Rockquest Week: 3 Performance Tips for Competing Bands

To seriously enter the conversation for finals, bands generally need strong scores across all 3 categories. At that point, things become much more subjective.

Rockquest is judged across 3 categories: Songwriting, Musicianship, and Performance. Each category is marked out of 5.

Because of this, you could have a 5/5 song, 5/5 musicianship, but a 2/5 performance score — and miss out completely. Which would be a real shame, because songwriting and musicianship are the hardest parts to develop, while performance points are often the easiest points to gain.

Assuming your song is written, you’ve practiced it to death, and the band is sounding tight, the best use of your time this week is focusing on the performance you’ll deliver on the day of the heats.

Here are 3 simple but important things to focus on during this week’s competition prep.

• Connection: first with each other, and then with the audience.

By the end of your one song at the heats, you should have connected with every band member at least once, and looked at every section of the audience at least once (lower, middle, upper, left, centre, right).

If you spend the entire performance staring at your hands, the floor, or your pedalboard, your chances of success at Rockquest become very slim.

Look up. Make eye contact with your bandmates. Connect with them.

It sounds simple, but it’s one of the most fundamental parts of performance. If you don’t do this, you stop looking like a band and start looking like 4 or 5 individuals all happening to stand on the same stage together.

A connected band immediately feels more confident, more believable, and more powerful to both the audience and the judges.

• Move Around The Stage

By the end of your song at the heats, make sure you have moved from your starting position multiple times.

The Rockquest stage is huge, and you need to make use of the space. If you stay rooted to one spot for the entire performance, you will struggle to compete with bands that actively use the stage.

This does not mean you need to dance or do crazy rockstar moves if that’s not natural to you (although if it is, absolutely lean into it). Even simply walking with confidence around the stage can be hugely effective.

It can also really help to have a rough movement plan before you perform.

For example:

• Maybe you’re the bassist, and during the intro you walk right to the front of the stage to connect with the crowd, before rushing back for the chorus to lock in with the drummer. Then in the next verse you move toward centre stage to connect with the guitars.
• Or maybe you’re the singer, and you start centre stage, move left during the first verse while connecting with different parts of the crowd, then cross to the other side for the second verse before returning centre for the chorus.

Whatever your plan is, the important thing is that you move.

If stage movement doesn’t feel natural to you yet, planning it beforehand is incredibly helpful. It gives you something to fall back on if nerves kick in or your mind goes blank on stage.

• Have a Cohesive Band Style

Before the heats, decide on a style for the band — your overall vibe, colours, and aesthetic — and make a plan for showing up looking like you belong together.

This does not mean everyone has to wear the exact same outfit. But it does mean the band should feel visually connected.

Having a cohesive style is a huge advantage, and it starts communicating something about your band before you’ve even played your first note.

If one person shows up dressed super formal while another looks completely casual, the band can start to feel more like a collection of individual musicians rather than a unified group — which goes directly against the connection and cohesion judges are looking for.

Align on a style and try to stick to it.

A great example of this is Lila alumni Buzz, who are two-time Rockquest National Finalists. Before you even hear their songs or see their performances, they already look like a band. That visual cohesion immediately helps create connection and identity — which they then build on through their music and performance.

And most importantly — remember to enjoy it.

Getting a song to the point where you’re performing it at Rockquest is already a huge achievement. A lot of work, practice, stress, rewrites, and commitment has gone into getting to this stage.

Enjoy the experience. Take in the atmosphere. Learn from the judges’ feedback, support the other bands, and be proud of what you’ve created.

No matter what happens at the heats, the important thing is that you keep writing, keep performing, and keep developing as a band.

Good luck at the heats!