The Blues Foundation recommends that all Affiliated Organizations use their established scoring criteria. Categories include Vocals, Talent, Blues Content, Stage Presence and Originality.

1. Blues Content:Everyone has his or her own interpretation of what is and is not Blues. Thus, any given judge panel will include members with varying opinions of Blues, covering the spectrum of Blues whenever possible, from the most traditional to soul/blues and rock/blues. Bands should pick material carefully. At the Memphis semi-finals and finals, the judges are Blues professionals, not a bar crowd, and are likely to be unimpressed with song selections that are uninspired. (Call this--with all due respect to Sir Mack Rice and Wilson Pickett--the "no Mustang Sally rule.")
2. Vocals:The acts vocal skills.
3. Talent:The acts instrumental skills
4. Orginality:Original work is encouraged. Cover tunes are allowed but playing the recorded rendition lick by lick is discouraged; will not be looked upon favorably by the judges; and will be reflected in scoring.
5. Stage Presence:Over the years, the quality of talent has risen so dramatically that we no longer consider this an "amateur" competition. Most contestants have performed on stage enough to know that they are not simply playing music, but putting on a show. This category rates how "sellable" a band may be.

To reflect the relative importance of each category in the success of a band, a band's score in each category is weighted. Raw scores for Blues Content is multiplied by four, Talent and Vocals by three and Originality and Stage Presence are multiplied by two. The total in each category represents the Weighted Score for that category. Total possible weighted score is 140.

Penalty Points

A Band is penalized one point from its Total Weighted Score (see below) for ten seconds it runs overtime. There no penalty for using less than the allotted time.

1. All categories and weightings are as previously stated.
2. Each judge will indicate his or her Raw Score (a whole number between 1 and 10) in each category and turn that information over to the scorekeeper.
   • 1-3 Typical of a beginning blues band.
   • 4-5 Typical of a local weekend band.
   • 6-7 Typical of an advanced local band but not yet ready to headline a major blues club.
   • 8-9 Typical of the quality of blues artists who headline major clubs.
   • 10 Typical of those who play the main stage at major festivals.
3. The scorekeeper will multiply the Raw Score in each category by the established multiplier to get each judge's Weighted Score in each category for each act.
4. The Weighted Scores from each category for an act are added together to determine the acts' Total Weighted Score for each judge.
5. Any penalty points will then be deducted to obtain the act's Net Weighted Score for each judge.
6. After all acts have been judged and each act's Net Weighted Score for each judge calculated, each act will then be ranked for each judge based on that judge's order of scores, with the act receiving the judge's highest Net Weighted Score being given a ranking of 1, and so on for that judge. So, in a competition with five acts, for example, each judge ends up with the acts ranked 1 - 5 based on each judge's personal scoring habits. This results in the acts' Final Ranking Number for each judge.
7. Next, the scorer totals the Final Ranking Number from all judges for each act to determine the Gross Final Ranking. That figure is averaged (divided by the total number of judges) to Achieve the Aggregate Act Ranking. For the semi-finals the act in each venue with the best two- day total of Aggregate Act Ranking will advance to the finals. For the finals, the act with the best Aggregate Act Ranking is the top finisher.
8. In the case of a tie, the scorer shall calculate the sum of all Total Weighted Scores from all judges for the tied acts. The band with the higher sum of Total Weighted Scores wins.