The Midwest Person of Leather Contest:

On-stage Pop Questions (50 points) 

Each contestant will draw a pop question, which they must answer during the Friday night contest.  The questions will be written and provided by the producer of the Midwest Master/slave Contest, with input from the judging panel. 

Speech (75 points)

Each contestant is required to give a short speech (2 minutes or less) on the topic of their choice from the stage during the evening portion of the contest.  If a contestant’s speech exceeds 2 minutes, the contestant will be allowed to continue with a live mic and the judges will be notified that the contestant went over time. The judges will not penalize the contestants for going over and will judge them on the quality and content of the speech. The deduction will be made by the Tallymaster to the final composite speech score as follows: Overtime by 1 second to 15 seconds (No penalty); Overtime by 16 seconds to 60 seconds (5 points deducted); Overtime by 61 seconds or more (10 points deducted). The contestants are permitted to have helpers in the audience indicating time markers during the speeches. The judges will not penalize the contestants in any way for making use of timekeepers.

Interview (200 points)

Interviews will be limited to 15 minutes. Questions are likely to focus on community contribution, leather history and personal history. However, questions addressing broader leather/BDSM topics are also appropriate.  Questions about sex or play with any of the judges are inappropriate; do not ask them. Also, avoid asking contestants to name something about each judge. 

Educational Presentation (75 points) 

The presentation category is designed to judge the contestants’ ability to speak in a seminar type format on topics relating to the Leather Community. The contestant is required to make a brief (no more than 10 minute) presentation on any topic relating to the Leather Community followed by a 5 minute Q&A with the audience.

If the presentation exceeds 10 minutes, the contestant will be allowed to continue and the tallymasters will be notified that the contestants went over time. The presentation will not be interrupted.

The judges will not penalize the contestants for going over and will judge them on the quality and content of the presentation only. The deduction will be made by the Tallymaster to the final composite presentation score as follows:

Overtime by 1 seconds to 15 seconds No penalty.

Overtime by 16 seconds to 60 seconds 5 points deducted per contestant going over.

Overtime by 61 seconds or more 10 points deducted per contestant going over.

Leather Lifestyle (100 points)

Contestants will be observed by the judges throughout the weekend, both in and out of formal contest events, and will be judged on how they present themselves and interact with the public, how they interact with their fellow contestants, and how they represent themselves as a Person of Leather.  Judging in this category begins Friday evening when the contestants introduce themselves and draw their numbers at the Midwest Leather and Kink Alliance Opening Ceremonies. The judging sheet for this category will be turned in at the end of the contest on Saturday night, to be tallied with the scores for the other categories.

Judges Intent

Judges are expected to treat the contestants with kindness and respect. Judges will arrive on-time and participate fully in each judging component. Judges will observe the contestants before MWLKA, out and about at other events, as well as social media presence. Judges will research contestants and learn about them prior to arrival at MWLKA. Confidentiality is of primary importance. We require that Judges hold in confidence all information they receive about the contestants and do not discuss this information outside of Judge deliberations.

1. There are seven judges for the Midwest Person of Leather Contest. The high score and low score for the contestants in each judging category will be thrown out and the remaining five scores will be averaged, giving a single score per contestant for each category. The contestants’ scores for the five categories then will be added to give a final overall score. A perfect score would be 500. The contestant with the highest overall score is the winner.

2. If a judge becomes incapacitated during the Midwest Person of Leather Contest, or if for any reason the Owner/Producer in their sole discretion determines a judge is unable or unwilling to carry out their duties as a judge, that judge will be withdrawn from the Contest and their scores will be discarded. The remaining 6 judges will continue to score the Contest under the Olympic scoring system, with the high and low scores of the remaining 6 judges dropped from the calculations. The Owner/Producer reserves the right to define the duties of a judge of the Midwest Person of Leather Contest and to determine if a judge is able and/or willing to carry out those duties. The Owner/Producer further retains the right to remove from the judging panel any judge who in their judgment is unable to carry out those duties.

3. In the event of a tie score between two or more contestants, the winning pair will be the one with the highest overall score, without using Olympic scoring. Thus, in the event of a tie, the scores of the tied contestants in each of the 5 contest categories will be recalculated, without dropping the high and low scores. The resulting composite scores for the tied contestants then will be averaged, again without dropping the high and low scores. The pair with the highest overall non-Olympic score will be the winner.

Contest Schedule

(This page is intended as an overview of the Contest process. Scheduling may change as the event schedule is finalized.)

Contestants must be available to attend all events.
Please refer to the contest schedule for specific times and locations.

Friday:

• Contestant Meeting

• Opening Ceremonies

• Pop Question

• Speech

Saturday:

• Interview

• Education Presentation

Sunday (see Sponsors):

• Photo Sessions

• Winner's Meeting