Most of the open poetry slams in Denmark go by the standard rules, meaning:
* Time limit of 3m10s – penalty is 0,5 point counting from 3m10s01
* Only original texts/performances (don’t copy stuff from others), no music or instrumentes, no costumes or funny hats, no nudity etc.
* Max of 10 (sometimes more) poets in the first round, 6 poets in the second round, 3 in the third round – one winner.
* 5 judges or 5 teams of judges randomly picked among the audience – judges must not have personal relations to any of the performing poets. Judges are given score cards from 0,0 to 10, the highest and lowest score doesn’t count, given a max total of 30 points in each round. The poets with the highest score from round 1 goes on to round 2, and the poets with the highest score in total from round 1 and 2 goes on to round 3. The poet with the highest score in round 3 (not all rounds) wins, but the point is…
* Prior to the actual poetry slam, a sacrifice poet performs in order to warm up the audience and judges. The rest is run by MC or a team of MCs.
Sometimes there are poetry slams with special themes and rules etc., for instance Dead or Alive-slams, team-slams, stolen slam slams etc., but mostly it’s straight up open poetry slam in Denmark.
