There is so much that goes on at Premiere that I could write an entire article about it. But I won’t, I'll stick to the competitions. So at Premiere, we had five competitions over two days. Mirror Image, French Twist, and Mixed Media on Sunday, and Fantasy Nail Art and Salon Success on Monday. I heard the competition director say that there were over 100 entries all together. That’s a pretty good turn out! Not as many as Vegas, but still better than in the past.

The first Premiere show that I went to was probably the largest. That was in 2005 and there was a hurricane going on then too. You might remember it, hurricane Katrina? Anyways, that was the first time I really experienced the whole top 10 elimination thing because of the amount of competitors. I think the directors had five groups of models to preview and I remember thinking that the judging was going to take forever. I didn’t realize what the eliminations were for or how they worked. I used to think that if you paid an entry fee that you should have your nails judged. But now as a seasoned competitor I understand the benefits of the eliminations.

The first benefit is the time. Judging 10 models takes much less time than if they had to judge say 40 or 50. Can you imagine being the 50th model to be judged? Logistically speaking, if each model takes only five minutes to be judged (that is so fast I would question the score) times 50 models = 250 minutes or four hours and 15 minutes!

Keeping in mind that the models just spent two-and-a-half hours modeling for the competition and they can not leave the area without an escort or eat or even just move around. I feel sorry for the models as it is. I can’t imagine having to sit there for six or seven hours.

The other benefit is if you make it in the top 10, you will have a more accurate score because the judges keep all 10 models there and decide which order they rank. This way if there is tie in the scores or a question of which nails might be better, all three judges can go back to any of the models and look again instead of just relying on score sheets.

BTW, all three judges must agree who 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are before they release the models. That equals less discrepancies and I will say I think the elimination process is an advancement in competitions over all.

— Lynn