The Finnish finals ended the competition season on the weekend of the 18th and 19th of September. The competition was held at the West coast at Kalajoki Hiekkasärkät Areena. At the beginning of the season we could not forsee that at in a few months we would be hosting one of the largest final events in the history of EMMA Finland.
The audience, competitors and organisers were indulged with a spectrum of 62 competitors in total. 46 sound quality runs, 18 ESPLs, 8 ESQLs, 8 tunings and 3 shows in multimedia. Although the upcoming change with the competition CD and rulebook is greeted with vigour and glee, this second to last event enabled a few Finnish high scores in the ESPL-department. The sound quality competitors witnessed a number of dark horses taking the win and even for a few oldies the championship was a result of a decade of hard work.
As our competitor numbers rose as the season progressed we realised that we would be running out of judges. Ultimately we were incredibly fortunate to have “the mothership” assist us with getting three incredible international judges to join forces and pull the weight. Volker Simmer, Stefan Geltl and Nick Constantine flew to Finland and helped us over the weekend. All in all the Finnish finals were one of unity and solidarity within the EMMA community and a healthy reminder of what normality was a few years back.
For the time being – or at least the next couple of weeks – we shall all be recharging our batteries (badam-ts) but after a short break we will no doubt be up and at it, preparing for the European Finals of 2022.
Wishing all EMMA-associates much warmer weathers than what we have here,
All the best from Finland
