Miss HorrorFest Contest Rigged?
There has been alot of backlash on our site as of late over the Miss HorrorFest contest. ( See the Discussion that started it all ) Its also not just fan backlash either, there are contestants also jumping on the band wagon of 'Who chose Miss HorrorFest?'. Its not anyone trying to undermine the contest that I can tell, its just alot of confusion on how winners are chosen and frankly their is confusion on my part to.. or was. It is a valid question and one that deserved answering. I thought the answer was 'Fans Vote, winner is chosen'. Not the case at all. Is the contest rigged? Is it a conspiracy? Did AfterDark Violate their own rules? So many questions.. and it seemed no answers.
Since AfterDark Films has always been so open and friendly with us we turned to the people in the know for the answers. In a few phone conversations and emails with After Dark we were able to get you some answers to questions that readers specifically posted on our site. AfterDark was happy to talk to us and bent over backwards to make sure we got the answers we needed. So kudos to them for taking the time for us since they most certainly did not have to.
First off lets go over the issues. Right off the bat readers wondered how they chose the 4 finalists. The rules state that the winners will be chosen by voters, sponsors and execs at AfterDark. So in a nut shell although After Dark took all your votes into consideration, they have final say as to who is a finalist and it was in the rules which everyone can read. You may not like it, I may not like it, but the rules are the rules.
Voters and sponsors chose the 4 finalists just as the rules said they would. I would bet though most of you like me did not read the rules and mistakenly thought that our votes were all that counted... I know it wasnt until now that I bothered to read the rules and see how they were ultimately chosen.
The other hot button issue is SuicideGirls. Specifically were they a sponsor of the contest, got paid to enter, and were giving out goodies at live auditions, etc etc. We went right to Courtney Solomon for the answer to this. Quote:
There is no affiliation between the Miss HorrorFest competition and the suicide girls. ADF has purchased ad space from the suicide girls organization on their website, however, each individual suicide girl has no ownership to our knowledge of the suicide girls organization, they are just independent members of the site but have no involvement in the running of the suicide girls organization.
Several suicide girls tried out for the Miss HorrorFest contest of their own volition, and only advanced to the finals entirely based on her own merits and You Tube voting.
....The suicide girls organization has absolutely no say in the final outcome for miss horrorfest.
Now obviously some readers are going to say, 'What do you expect him to say?'. Which is fair but we can back up his statements with a comment posted by a contestant on our site who is also a suicide girl. SalomeSlaughter posts:
....the models are not considered employees of Suicide Girls; we just sell photographs to them. While I can see that perhaps we were actually eligible, I can also see how some contestants might consider our participation a conflict of interest.
I can tell you for a fact that all of the Suicide Girls who entered the contest had no expectation of favoritism, or even of winning. We did it for fun, and that's it. I got to drench my bathroom in blood and terrorize unsuspecting families at the Chicago casting agency with a severed head. That's reward enough for me!
So yes girls who submit photos to Suicide Girls entered and perhaps they were paid by SuicideGirls.com but that is not After Darks doing or in their control. Its great marketing for SuicideGirls. I think next year I will pay Goon to enter. He doesnt look so hot in pasties but hey its good press. ( Sorry had to inject some humor here to lighten the mood ). The SuicideGirls are not employees, the girls just SELL pictures to the site. So it seems the mystery is solved.
The last issue that came up was where are the winners, and whats the deal with voting, and the final results. For that we again have a quote from Courtney:
....we are extending the contest to finish this Thursday Nov. 8, which will be announced officially later today.
The goal of this article was to hopefully debunk some of the bad feelings about the contest. Is the contest rigged? Not that I can see. Do I have all the answers? Of course not. All I can say is After Dark answered all the questions candidly that I posed, and from reading the rules I can not see how the contest is rigged. I also hope that the readers who posed the questions to me also feel that the answers make sense, even if they cant say they are happy with the answers.
I commend all the contestants and fans who posted on our site with information and insights on the contest. Our site is afterall all about fan interaction and since we supported so many of the contestants its good to see they felt comfortable using us as the outlet for concern and commentary.
I know that some will be greatly dissapointed that the fans are not 100% choosing the winners and you can decide to participate or not next year. However I do not think its fair to say the contest is rigged, or a setup. As it is the rules, whether we like them or not are in stone and they have not changed.. At the end of the day ask yourself What does AfterDark have to gain by cheating the contest? Nothing. What do they have to lose? A whole hell of alot. The whole horror fanbase if they are not carefull. I hope this has helped answer some questions and I hope you all take it in the context it is intended.