Ladies and gentlemen, we're back! The Voice Idol Factor is returning for its second series following its fairly popular first series that took place in the New Year. It' back, bigger, better and bolder.

As some of you remember, the previous series was won by Jacka and Caleb Johnson, who beated XOX and The Collective in an intense and spectacular finale show. Because of the sucess of the first series, decided to bring the format back to have yet another go with it as the show interests people. With a new series comes another new launch thread, and this one is needed especially badly as there are quite a number of changes this series.

In The Voice Idol Factor, four members of the Digital Spy Forums will take on a mentoring role of one of the four categories (girls, boys, groups and overs). Each of them will mentor SIX acts from American Idol, The Voice and The X Factor from Australia, UK and US in a bid to win the show with one of them.

1. All chosen act must have been atleast part of the Top 24 of their respective shows (Judges' Houses for X Factor, Playoffs for The Voice and Semifinal for Idol)
2. Each act from a category must come from different shows, no two acts can be from one show.

Changes in format
1. Live Playoffs - From the six acts chosen, before the voting opens, one act will be given a fast pass to enter the Live Shows, to the five remaining, two acts will be chosen by the voting public, then the mentor chooses the last act moving forward.
2. Live Shows - There are more live shows than the previous series which only had 7, this series would estimatedly have atleast 10-12 live shows, lesser chances of double elimination
3. Themes - Classic X Factor themes are out this series and replaced with more unusual themes, listed below are the themes for this series

4. Week Long Semifinal - Our semifinals will be divided into four shows, three performance shows and one results show. And a special suprise coming your way.

With two judges confirming their return, one yet undetermined, there is one vacant spot in the panel and you can be the next judge in the show. All you need to do is PM me this application form. The deadline of the application form will be on Wednesday, April 6th, with the launch following on the evening followed by the finale of aXed Factor

To apply to be a judge, please PM me this:
Name/Username:
Why do you want to be part of this game:
What could you bring the panel:

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's back, welcome to the launch show of Voice Idol Factor (series 2)!

Right now, it's time for us to find out who our judges are for this series, more importantly, which category will they be mentoring for the rest of the season, perhap the most crucial thing - who will they take to our Live Playoffs? To keep things short, let's jump right into action. Judges, you may post freely (in fact, I highly encourage you to, it keeps the thread lively) once your name has been announced.

Our first judge is one of the three returning judges this series, yes, it's three. There, you've got a clue on who is in our panel. Back to our topic, our first judge has an amazing track record, he has already won three games. He currently holds the VIF record for having all his three acts in our top 5. Let's all welcome our first judge....

The second member of our Voice Idol Factor judging panel is another returning judge. After scoring his third win after winning the first series of Voice Idol Factor, he's back and he's in it to win it for his fourth win. It's the amazing:

Now, let's move on to our third returning judge, I'm not sure if I consider him a returning as he joined us halfway on the first one. But this newcomer, has quite done good, grabbing two wins with Darren Espanto and Karla Estrada (promoting my games *small laugh* BOTG2 finale tomorrow). Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...

Our fourth and final judge has been quite around these forum games in the past few months, he has almost won several shows of mine (let's see if he scores his first one tomorrow at the final of BOTG 2). Let's give a round of applause to...

There you have it folks, your Voice Idol Factor judges. I think we've got an amazing panel once again, with a good variety of both personalities and mentoring styles being represented on it.

NicPlays
thatguysinging1
Jackamakka
Soppyfan

The next part of this launch show is the all-important category reveal, but before we get to that it's time for a little interlude.

Let's take one final look back at last series. Singing his single Fighting Gravity, it's series 1 champion Caleb Johnson once more!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kxDyjZ1aFEI

Once more for the stunning Caleb Johnson everyone!

Now, it's time to focus on the current series instead of looking back.

But before I reveal that, I want you to post both the category you'd really love to get and the one you absolutely don't want to get. Keep in mind that everything's set all set already, it's just a question for all of you.

Take note, this has no baring to the category distribution as it has already been randomly assigned when I got the full panel earlier today.

Unfortunately for you, it's all set already - not everyone will get what they want as that's simply not possible, but some of you might be.

Let's start with our winning judge. Jacka, you mentored the Over 25s last series and won it together with Caleb. Jacka, the category you will be mentoring this series is...