The Untz Challenge IX: Turn Your Dreams into a Reality

The depressing winter months are drawing to a close, and that means TheUntz.com is bringing back The Untz Challenge. Once again, we are giving two rising stars a life-changing opportunity.

Our prize package includes sets at the biggest and best summer music festivals taking place across the United States—and this year, we've picked the cream of the crop. The two winners of The Untz Challenge IX will be playing at SEVEN major music festivals across a four month span.

Our two winning acts will hit Summer Camp Music Festival (May 25-27 — Chillicothe, IL), The Untz Festival (June 1-3 — Mariposa, CA), SONIC BLOOM (June 14-17 — Spanish Peaks Country, CO), Electric Forest (June 21-24 or June 28-July 1 — Rothbury, MI), Camp Bisco (July 12-14 — Scranton, PA), 515 Alive Music Festival (Dates TBA — Location TBA), and Imagine Music Festival (September 21-23 — Hampton, GA).

Beginning March 5th and continuing until March 23rd, The Untz will accept submissions for the competition via SoundCloud. During the first half of April, fans will vote on their favorite tracks via TheUntz.com.

A total of 2 slots will be given away to the winners of this contest. The grand prize, which includes a performance slot at each of the participating festivals, will be won through the fan voting process. The second place winner is chosen by the staff of TheUntz.com, and will have the opportunity to perform at the same dates along the run.

Important Dates for The Untz Challenge IX
March 5 – Track submission begins
March 23 – Track submission ends 11:59pm PST
April 2 – Voting begins
April 13 – Voting ends 11:59pm PST
April 16 – First and second place winners announced

The Submission process is now OPEN:

We're doing things just like we did last year, so please read these extremely simple instructions carefully (then double check the rules and regs below to make sure you're complying with all our very specific criteria). We're making things as easy as possible for submission, so please, please don't screw it up and hurt your chances!

1. Upload your track to your Soundcloud account. Make the track public and enable downloads.

2. Fill out this online form. Please fill it out accurately and thoroughly. This will ensure you're in our system properly and your track doesn't get lost in the shuffle.

3. Sit back and relax. You're all done. That was easy, wasn't it? On April 2nd we will release the finalists, which coincides with the first day of voting. If you're one of our finalists, it'll be time to get out the vote, so rest up for the long campaign ahead, and good luck.

Now then, here are the rules and regulations of the competition:

• ORIGINAL tracks can be submitted beginning March 5^th, and we will continue to accept submissions until March 23^rd at 11:59 pm PST. (DO NOT SUBMIT TRACKS BEFORE 3/5/18)
• Submitted tracks must be UNRELEASED prior to the contest start date, which covers singles, EPs, LPs, and compilations on major and independent labels, free/paid releases via Bandcamp, and free downloads/streams on SoundCloud.
• Tracks must REMAIN UNRELEASED (except on SoundCloud) until the contest is over (April 13).
  Artists retain the rights of ownership of their work.
• Please submit only ONE track per DJ/producer. If you submit more than one, only your first entry will be considered—and it will annoy us to no end, which is not a good thing.
• This is strictly a contest for PRODUCERS. No live bands, please. There are other contests for that. This is not one of them.
• DO NOT submit MIXES, REMIXES, or STOLEN WORK. (Yes, we understand DJs create mixes, but we want ORIGINAL, SINGLE tracks for this particular competition.)
• Each track may contain licensed, royalty free samples, but no unauthorized proprietary samples. All submitted tracks MUST NOT infringe US copyright law. Any track removed by SoundCloud for potential copyright infringement will also be disqualified from this contest.
• The Untz staff will compile a list of the best submissions.
• Only votes originating from verified email providers (i.e. Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Live, AOL, university emails, etc.) will be counted. Blatant use of unverified emails/spam accounts will result in disqualification.
• Voting by the public will take place from April 2 - April 13
  • NO bot voting
  • NO voting incentives (i.e. "each voter gets a free iPad")
  • NO voting raffles (i.e. "we'll take one lucky voter to each festival with us")