TERMS & CONDITIONS

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INTERNATIONAL ONLINE DANCE COMPETITION (IODC)

The International Online Dance Competition, or IODC (“the Contest”) is open to all dancers and choreographers (“the Contestants”). 

However it is important to note:

If the Contestant or Contestants are not 18 years of age or older, then the e-mail used to enter the competition must be that of a parent or legal guardian.  There is a field on the entry form for the parent or legal guardian to enter his or her name.

If the Contestant or Contestants are 18 years of age or older, then they may enter freely by themselves.

Contest will be run by ChoreOnline, Inc. (Trade Name: Choreography Online, hereafter called “we,” “us,” or “our”).

By entering the Contest the Contestants accept these Terms and Conditions together with any specific instructions and terms for the Contest which may be mentioned on-air, in any electronic messages, or on the website, or communicated to Contestants in any other way (“Contest Information”). Such Contest Information shall prevail in the event of there being any inconsistency between these Terms and Conditions and any Contest Information.

Please note that any violation of any of these rules, or violation of any of the clauses in these Terms and Conditions of this competition, will be grounds for disqualification.  In the event of disqualification, the entrant(s) will be notified as soon as the disqualification has been determined.  No refunds will be given to disqualified entrants.

We reserve the right to cancel or amend the Contest, Contest Information, or these Terms and Conditions without prior notice, including but not limited to, changing the dates of, postponing, or expanding the competition at any time and in any manner we deem fit. Any changes will be posted either within the Contest Information or these Terms and Conditions. 

We reserve the right to deduct points from or disqualify any entry or Contestant that does not adhere to the rules and regulations.

We will do our best to foresee any possible situation, dispute, or problem that may occur during the course of this competition.  However, we are human and may not have thought of everything. We therefore reserve the right to change, delete, or add to any rules, regulations, or policies at any time deemed necessary.

Our decision in all matters to do with the Contest will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Entry

All entries must be paid for and entrants must accept these Terms and Conditions in order to be officially entered into the competition. Employees and members of their immediate families (including any live-in partner or household member) of any of the following may not enter:

• Company employees
• Employees of IODC partners and affiliates

The Contest opens at 12:01 am on May 7th, 2025 EDT (United States East Coast). The closing time and date for receipt of entries is midnight EDT on June 4th, 2025.  Adjudication will continue after the June 4th, 2025 deadline for two to three weeks, in order to be able to fairly judge all entries, including any last-minute entries.

There is no limit to how many times you may enter nor is there a limit on the number of styles and categories you may enter; Contestants are free to submit as many individual entries as they wish and each entry will be judged separately.  However, you may not submit the same piece, with the same dancers in it, in the same category, more than once.  You may enter the same dance piece more than once if the dancers in each entry are different, or if the piece is entered by the choreographer in the Choreography Division while the same piece is entered by a dancer in the Dancer Division.  In this latter case, two completely different aspects and people are being adjudicated, so it will be allowed.

All videos entered in the Dance Division must not be older than one year from the first day of the 2025 competition. Acceptable video entries: 

• Dance Division: any dance video of Contestants that has been filmed within the last year.
• Choreography Division: any video of choreography that has been created within the last 10 years.
  

Any entry in any style or category displaying suggestive and/or inappropriate content will be automatically disqualified.   There will be no refund of any entry fees, service fees, or payment processing fees in the case of disqualification.

Dancers (and their parents/legal guardians, if applicable) and organizations associated with the entry must agree that, if the Contestant(s) make it past the First Round, their videos, names, website URLs, and any other pertinent public-appropriate information provided in the entry forms may be published in the Gallery of Finalists of the IODC website, as well as on the Winners Page of the IODC website at the end of the competition.

It may happen that some excerpts of some videos will be used to promote the dancers, choreographers, dance studio/school/company, Choreography Online, or the IODC competition itself through e-mail, social media, on websites, or through other electronic means.  Participation by the Contestants in this competition constitutes the Contestant's (and parent's or legal guardian's)  acceptance to the use of Contestan's entry videos by the Contest and its partners and affiliates in this manner.

To enter the Contest, Contestants must do the following:

1. Include a YouTube link to or upload a video and submit an entry.  Video files created using most digital cameras, camcorders and mobile phones such as in the .AVI, .MOV, .WMV, and .MPG file formats, are accepted.
2. Read and accept the terms and conditions and provide additional contact details so we can contact you if you are selected as a Finalist. Your details will be used solely for the purpose of administering the competition.

Upon entering the Contest,Contestants agree and attest that they have the permission from pertinent parties to use any video recording that they enter into the Contest. 

Determining the Correct Age Group to Enter: Dancers’ ages are determined by their age at the time of the filming of any video submitted.

Entries must be completed in accordance with the entry process set out above. No other method of entry will be accepted, unless agreed to in writing by the Contest. Entries which do not meet these criteria may not be considered.

Entries will not be complete until Contestants have included a YouTube link or uploaded their video entry, and have accepted these Terms and Conditions. We reserve the right to disqualify any entries submitted and/or finalised after the Contest has closed, if we determine that any of these Terms and Conditions have been violated.

The Contestant must keep a digital, hard copy, or sustain the YouTube link of their video entry for the entire duration of the Contest.  If required, Contestants may be asked to supply the original recording of, or link to, their video entry for use in connection with the Contest, including (but not limited to) for potential broadcast online or transmission by any electronic means.

All video entries will be subject to moderation. We and/or their agents have absolute discretion to accept or reject any video entry and to remove any video entry already accepted without giving reasons for the decision. We may in particular refuse to upload any video entry for the following reasons:

1. inclusion of defamatory or malicious content;
2. inclusion of content in video entries to which someone else owns the copyright or other intellectual property rights, such as music, singing, choreography, trademarks, logos, insignia, location signage, sculpture, posters, pictures, photographs or other artwork, music tracks, snippets of copyrighted programmes, or films made by other users, without the requisite authorisations or permission;
3. breach of these Terms and Conditions. By entering the Contest Contestants warrant that all information submitted by them is true, current, and complete. Contestants also warrant that they are either the copyright owners of their video entries, or have obtained all the pertinent permissions of use by the rightful copyright owners to enter said videos, and must not infringe the intellectual property rights, privacy, or any other rights of a third party.

By entering the Contest, Contestants understand and agree that:

1. the Contestants grant us a worldwide, royalty free, perpetual, irrevocable, sub-licensable and transferable licence which shall be exclusive for worldwide broadcast online and non-exclusive for all other forms of media to use their entries for whatever purpose including, without limitation, in connection with (i) any Programme produced in relation to the Contest or containing any information in relation to the Contest, including, without limitation, promotion and redistributing part or all of any such Programme (and derivative works thereof), and (ii) our internet websites, wireless applications, interactive television, video on demand and any other media or technology (including, without limitation, internet protocol, wireless or interactive platforms or interfaces) through which we distribute content to end users, whether now existing or hereafter developed in any and all media formats and through any and all media distribution and advertising and promotional purposes, without accounting, notification, credit, payment, or other obligation to Contestants. For the avoidance of doubt, these rights include, without limitation, the absolute right to edit and/or alter any entry, distribute and synchronize all or any portion of any entry in timed relation to any other visual elements; to web cast, podcast, re-publish, re-broadcast, re-platform, port, syndicate, route, and link to and from all or any portion of any entry; to encrypt, encode and decode, and compress and decompress all or any portion of any entry; to edit, mix, combine, merge, distort, superimpose, create or add special effects, illusions and/or other material to or of all or any portion of any entry; to create composite, stunt, comic or unusual photographs, videos, animations, motion pictures and/or voice reproductions from all or a portion of any entry; and to excerpt and/or extract portions of any entry in order to host, store, index, categorize and display entries on or through the Platforms. We reserve the right to use (or not use) Contestants’ entries at all and/or as little of the entry as we so choose;
2. the Contestants indemnify the Contest Parties (defined below) from any claim in respect of their entry;
3. to the extent permitted by applicable law, the Contestants unconditionally give us their consent to any act or omission that would otherwise infringe on any moral rights they may have in and in relation to their entries, and they undertake that they will not institute, maintain or support any claim or proceeding for infringement of any moral rights you they may have in and/or in relation to their entries.

None of our, (including their employees, officers, servants, agents) or any other party or organisation (including their, employees, officers, servants, agents) involved in the management, promotion, or administration of the Contest, or its entry, or implementation of any prize (or their agents or subsidiaries involved in any way in the Contest or any prize) (together the “Contest Parties”) will accept responsibility or liability for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, communications line failure, theft, destruction, alteration of, or unauthorised access to entries, or entries lost or delayed whether or not arising during operation or transmission as a result of server functions (including but not limited to security functions by software used by us or any third party), virus, bugs, or other causes outside its control. Proof of submission online is not proof of receipt by us.

Any entries which are incomplete, incorrect, inaudible, incomprehensible, or do not comply with the rules of the contest or these Terms and Conditions, may be deemed void by us.

In the event of any fault, mistake, misunderstanding or dispute concerning the correctness or acceptability of the entry, or the operation of any part of the Contest, or the interpretation of these Terms and Conditions, the decision we make shall be final and no correspondence will be entered into. 

We will not be liable to reimburse any expenses incurred in entering the Contest. 

We reserve the right to disqualify any Contestants and/or entries which it believes have not been made in compliance with these Terms and Conditions or to disqualify any Contestant found to have tampered with the entry process or the operation of the Contest or to be acting in an unsportsmanlike or disruptive manner, or with intent to threaten, abuse or harass any other person. 

Adjudication

Contestants agree that the time, manner, and method of judging the competition shall be solely within the discretion of the Director of the International Online Dance Competition and that all results of a competition are final. Judges and/or the Director break all ties. The Director has the right to change the manner and method at any time deemed necessary.

ChoreOnline Inc. reserves the right, when necessary, to add, subtract, or change the judges on the judging panel, if deemed necessary due to incapacitation (i.e. illness or death), change of availability, increased volume of entries, or for any other reason within or beyond our control that may necessitate a change in the judging panel.

Judges decisions are final and cannot be contested.  In the event of a tie for any Division, Style & Category, our panel of judges together, and/or the Director, will choose a winning entry at their own discretion.  Important:  the judges and ChoreOnline Inc. reserve the right to decide that a particular category/style/age group have no Finalist or no Winner, if the level of entries in said category/style/age group be deemed not up to the minimum standard of the Contest.

Judges scores will not be made public, nor will they be sent to entrants.  However, if specific feedback is desired, please write to us at info@iodc.online, and we will ask the pertinent judge to write a brief feedback paragraph.  Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that the judge will agree to write a feedback paragraph, as it may occur that the volume of requests be too great for this to be possible.  We apologize in advance for the inconvenience, and sincerely hope that you understand. If you wish to have a face-to-face video conference with a judge, that may be a possibility, but there is no guarantee that the judge will agree. If the judge does agree to give feedback in a video conference,  an extra fee may be charged for this service. Please e-mail info@iodc.online if you wish to have a live video conference with a judge.

Finalists

The public will shortlist their favourite Contestants (“the Finalists”) from all eligible entries received. 

Only the Finalists will be notified. 

The Finalists first names and surnames, as well as the studio, company, school or other organization they represent or have trained at may be published, provided that the name of the studio, company, school or organization was provided at the time of entry to the Contest.

We reserve the right to select an alternative Finalist or Winner, in the event that a Finalist or Winner is unable to be contacted, and is deemed unreachable after a reasonable amount of time or number of attempts by ChoreOnline Inc. to enter into contact with the Finalist or Winner.

Finalists or Winners may be asked to do video interviews for public broadcast through e-mail, social media, on websites, or through other electronic means.  This will most likely take the form of self-taping with a smartphone video camera.

Public Vote / Overall engagement 

The General Public will be invited to vote for their favourite Finalist (“the Public Vote”). The voting will open using the below factors.

Voting is free, though people have the option to pay for votes, in order  to offset the costs of running the Contest.

The system also counts the unique votes (to counter vote fraud) (not shown on the front end):

Number of views 

Number of Social shares 

Number of comments

You may be subject to your standard internet access charges or data charges if you are using a web browser on your mobile phone.

We reserve the right to disallow votes if it has reasonable grounds to suspect that fraudulent votes have been cast (ie more votes than a human being could possibly submit in the time available without the use of software or other devices designed to make automated votes). We reserve the right to disqualify any Finalist who engages in activity which could be designed to unfairly manipulate the outcome of the Public Vote. 

The Finalist who receives the highest number of public votes & overall engagement will be taken into consideration by us when determining the Contest winners.  However, receiving the highest number of public votes & overall engagement does not in itself determine the Contest winners.

In the event of an equal number of votes, all tied Finalists will be judged by our team, who will determine at its sole discretion which Finalist should win the Contest.

We will take all reasonable steps to contact the winner using the details provided by the Finalist when they entered the competition but in the event of any failure to do so or a Finalist’s failure to respond within 48 hours of our attempt to contact Finalist, we reserve the right, in its absolute discretion, to select an alternative winner from the Finalists.

The winner must be available to take part in interviews and/or any other promotional materials and/or events if requested by us.  In the event that the winner is not available when required, We reserve the right, in its absolute discretion, to select an alternative winner.

The prizes are comprised of:

Dance Winners

144 First Prizes of Medallion + Winner Certificate possible for the winner of each category in each age group in each dance style.  All Winning certificates will be produced in blockchain format, and sent electronically to each recipient.

Choreography Winners

• First Prize: Medallion & $1000 USD
• Second Prize: Medallion & $600 USD
• Third Prize: Medallion & $300 USD

Overall Performance Winner

• One Overall Performance Prize of $1000 USD
• All divisions and categories are eligible and automatically entered for this prize.

Influencer Certificate

An Influencer Certificate will be issued to the Finalist (or in some cases Finalists) who receive the most public votes in the Gallery of Finalists. Note that during public voting, there is an option to pay for multiple votes.  All voting proceeds will  go towards making this online competition possible, and to help keep entry fees low.

Possible Sponsor Merchandise for Finalists

Sponsor Merchandise Giveaways are dependent on each sponsor, and are therefore possible but not guaranteed.  New sponsors may come on board during the competition, so the Merchandise Giveaway situation could change at any moment, even after the competition is underway.

The winner acknowledges that The Prize is non-transferable and is not redeemable for any other value or consideration.

Money Prizes: All money prizes will be sent out electronically, through online systems such as PayPal, Interac (within Canada), wire transfer, or some other similar service.  Please note that ChoreOnline Inc. is located in Canada, so transfers using Venmo and Google Pay are not possible, as Venmo is only available in the USA, and Google Pay is not useable across countries.  Winners of money prizes will be notified within two to four weeks of the final determination of winners.  If you do not respond to the notification of winning with a satisfactory manner of receiving the prize money electronically within ninety (90) days of the notification, your right to receive the prize money will be null and void.

If a money prize will be collected by a third party, i.e. a dance studio or an organization representing the dancer(s) or choreographer, then by entering, the dance studio or organization attests that they have permission from the dancers or their parent or legal guardian to do so. Failure to comply with this clause constitutes a breach of these Terms and Conditions, and may result in disqualification and/or a financial penalty imposed on the breaching party.

We may in our sole discretion refuse to provide the Prize, or seek its recovery, in the event of non-entitlement under these Terms and Conditions or a Contestant's breach of these Terms and Conditions, fraud, dishonesty, or other inappropriate or improper conduct.

Data Protection and Publicity

The first names, surnames, and associated studio names and websites (if applicable) of the Finalists put through to the Public Vote, and the Contest winners may be publicly available from the date the various Finalists are selected for a minimum period of one week.

We may exercise its sole discretion to use all Finalists’ names, city, state or province, and country of residence, images, and their comments relating to the Prize and Contest experience for promotion of the Prize, this Contest, or the Contest Parties, and for future promotional, marketing and publicity purposes in any media worldwide without notice and without any fee being paid. 

The information Contestants supply in connection with the Contest (including their personal details):

1. may be included in a database compiled for the Contest and will be used for the purposes of selecting Finalists;

2. may also be used for inclusion and/or read out in any programme produced in connection with the Contest;

3. may be used to send prizes and/or merchandise to the Contestants by post, and

4. will not be supplied to third parties (other than the Contest Parties) other than as is reasonably necessary to select Finalists and administer the Contest.

Any personal information provided by the Contestants, will only be used by us in accordance with our Privacy Statement which is accessible for the purposes of the Contest or as otherwise set out in these Terms and Conditions. 

Liability

Nothing in these Terms and Conditions shall exclude or limit the Contest Parties’ liability for death or personal injury caused by their staff or supplier's negligence or for fraud. Subject to this, none of the Contest Parties can accept any responsibility for any damage, loss, injury or disappointment suffered by any Contestant entering the Contest or as a result of accepting the Prize. None of the Contest Parties are responsible for any problems or technical malfunction of any computer on-line systems, servers, or providers, computer equipment, software failure of any email or entry to be received on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any web site, or any combination thereof, including any injury or damage to Contestant’s or any other person’s computer related to or resulting from participation or downloading any materials in the Contest. 

None of the Contest Parties promise that the services relating to the Contest will be free from errors or omissions nor that they will be available uninterrupted and in a fully operating condition. These services may be suspended temporarily and without notice in the case of system failure, maintenance or repair or for reasons reasonably beyond the control of any Contest Party. We will not be liable in the event that all or any part of the service relating to the Contest is discontinued, modified or changed in any way. 

Standard terms

In the event that any Contestant does not, or is unable to, comply with and meet these Terms and Conditions and the Contest Information, We shall be entitled at our sole discretion to disqualify such Contestant, without any further liability to such Contestant. In these circumstances, any prize won by the Contestant may be forfeited. All Contestants must comply with any directions given by any Contest Party including but not limited to any and all relevant laws, rules and regulations, and where applicable.

The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of these Terms and Conditions shall not affect the validity or enforceability of any other provision. In the event that any provision is determined to be invalid or otherwise unenforceable or illegal, these Terms and Conditions shall otherwise remain in effect and shall be construed in accordance with their terms as if the invalid or illegal provision were not contained herein. 

These Terms and Conditions and the Contest Information shall be exclusively governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Québec, Canada in the judicial district of Montreal.

Our Customer Services team may be contacted by e-mail at info@iodc.online.

These Terms and Conditions were last updated on January 16, 2024.