NCO 2024/25 auditions

[BlueAndYelow]

Is there anyone waiting for NCO audition results for projects/main this year?

I am normally a lurker, but as the decision is nearing I want to share the wait. My dd is a cellist and probably will miss on the projects programme again, but hey, I will be happy to hear any positive news from the others and maybe we all can share tips as to how to improve for next time.

any news yet? we are waiting too :(

surely this is the week...
remembering back to my younger days when you waited for envelopes to come through doors with audition results. a fat envelope was good news!

I noticed there was an extra tick (view) on our submitted video. 🫢 Not sure what it means anything or if a family member peeked... I don't expect anyone from our our side with so much time passed.

Still nothing today 🙄

Nothing. Not “mid october” then. Unnecessary to have said that only to miss it.

Its a bit misleading really isnt it.

nothing here either….. i guess on the bright side we’ve all not heard so that’s not a no 😂😂

Good point well made 😂

It must be coming out this week surely! Still waiting here too ... My son's waiting for under 13s result. Good luck to everyone!!

Waiting to hear too - for the last time 🥹 DD ‘s first time was as a little year 3 in the U10s back in 2018/19 so keeping everything crossed for Mains.

Looking back, there’s been no typical day nor time for results to come through - they’ve been as late as 11th December (when live auditions happened in October) and upto 8:15pm.

Good luck to everyone!!

Last year was 20th Oct, the year before 17th Oct.
If I'm perfectly honest we are reaching the point where we need to give answers on other things so if we don't hear fairly imminently, even if we do get a place we would have to turn it down. It's a shame if that happens but there is only so long we can hold the dates for.

Agree.

Also waiting - definitely past mid October!

I just emailed them to ask when the results will be released... They replied and this is the message. Let's hope that by very soon, it means this week! 🤞

Thank you for your patience as we finalise the results of this year’s auditions. To clarify, we’re currently in the final stages of the process and will be sending the outcomes out very soon.

We appreciate your support and understanding during this busy time.

I love the “to clarify” without doing much clarification….

Thats a rubbish response tbh. It literally says nothing doesnt even indicate if this week is likely 🙄

I sometimes wonder whether they realise what a massive financial commitment it is for a lot of people.... While people are ring fencing potentially 2+ grand for this they aren't able to commit to other big financial spends? The longer they wait to tell people, the more chance people might miss on other opportunities that might become affordable if 2k being held potentially for NCO becomes available again

i think it’s that they think so much of the organisation, they assume people will find a way. Arrogance i guess. But as previous posters have said, there are lots of other opportunities for committed young musicians..

It's better to have a specific date instead of saying 'very soon'

I think you're right, a sense of, well we are NCO so people will prioritise this above everything...m
Its a shame because I think this sort of thing probably contributes to the low numbers of state school pupils participating.

I wonder if it's finding time to assess the late auditions, or the IT job of cueing up emails and having the systems ready to log accepted places and take payments/bursary applications.

Presumably the auditions are assessed by tutors who have day jobs to do performing or teaching too. If they hadn't been so quick last year I'd have expected at least a fortnight after late auditions closing.

Probably shouldn't have said 'mid October' when someone emailed them last week then, should they

Yes that's what I was wondering as well, if the lateness is due to the late audition in October.. anyway I'm crossing everything that we will receive the results this week!

Sadly we have to confirm another financial commitment by end of the day (think school end of half term deadline) so if we haven't heard by end of the day today it's a no from us regardless of the outcome 😢
Don't want to miss out on other opportunity in case we wait ages for NCO then its a no anyway!

I know waiting is frustrating, because we all have various financial commitments and decisions to make, but to be fair, in their 2024/2025 audition booklet it was said that the results would be emailed in October/November. I spotted it as I thought to myself that it looked like this year the results would come out later than in the last year.

For the majority of the staff at NCO, it is not a full-time job, quite a few of them work on a volunteer basis. Majority of them, even though working in NCO administration, are musicians, or those who worked for educational institutions and NGOs/NPOs. Meaning there is a certain lack of business process management, which is a feature of many similar organisations, when they don’t hire/invite commercial professionals. They focus on musical experience, abilities to apply for grants etc, when hire personnel, but ignore the fact that managing the business processes is something that needs to be done by different professionals. Hence all these little imperfections in a process not being addressed over years.