Shining Star expands age categories, offering more opportunities for aspiring singers

Shining Star 2025 – a children’s singing competition organized by Sun Siyam Media’s SSTV and the Time Academy of Performing Arts – has made major changes to age categories, expanding opportunities for aspiring singers to showcase their talent.

The changes include expanding the age cap for the senior group from participants aged 18 as of January 1, 2025 to those under the age of 19. According to the organizers, the purpose of this change is to offer opportunities to schoolchildren whose graduation got delayed due to the closure of schools during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The organizers have also introduced a new age category in response to requests from multiple parents, offering children aged 3 to under 6 as of January 1, 2025 the opportunity to participate in the nursery group.

This change allows children aged 3-4 to participate in the competition.

Those interested in participating in the competition are asked to send an SMS to 2747.

SMS details:

• SS (space) Name, Age (send SMS to 2747).

Those who send an SMS will be contacted by the event organizers and provided additional details regarding the competition.

Children participating from Male’ City, Hulhumale’ and Vilimale’ will be required to present their performance live on stage at the event venue. But children outside the greater Male’ area who do not wish to travel to the capital for the performance can submit a video recording of their performance via the designated portal. These video submissions must comply with standards set by the event organizers, the details of which will be provided at a later date.

The applications deadline for Shining Star 2025 is August 31. Each participant will be charged MVR 500 as an administrative fee.

The Shining Star 2025 offers a much-needed platform for aspiring singers to showcase their talents, at a time when there are no competitive singing competitions of the scale for school age children.

The competition, which is set to begin in November, has already been receiving a lot of applications.

The Time Academy is also preparing to hold online sessions for basic vocal training for participants of the competition.

The Shining Star 2025, which uses different standards and policies for judging than usually used in such signing competition, and has additional segments to boost interest, will be aired live via SSTV and SunPlay app. All performances will also be shared by Sun Siyam Media via its various platforms.