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National Bingo Caller Time Of The Year...Well It Would Have Been! - Old News Archive

Posted On: Sunday, 9 November, 2008

It is around this time of year when normally this site and my blog would be full of news about the National Bingo caller of the year competition: but as the contest is suspended this year this months rambling piece will be more reflective on my experiences as being a contestant and a former title holder!

The first thing I noticed when I got through to the final rounds of the competition in the first year is that I am not the only one who takes this whole calling thing seriously. From the regional heats, right through to the weekends grand finale in London, every caller that I have met has been as eager as I have about the industry. Its an unusual feeling to be having conversations about bingo with people without thinking that they are bored and have no connection with what you are saying. Most of the time in the 'real' world when you go to parties or events you generally meet people who work in IT, or in a shop. When you tell someone that you are a bingo caller the first question they normally ask is 'ahhhh and what else do you do?' Closely followed by 'haha legs eleven and mmmmmmmm 69!!!!!!' (wheres my baseball bat!)

In the competition however, when you are speaking to someone about Dotty who always has to have 5 tickets from the top and has to sit on table 122 facing the diner, you know that the person you are talking to have gone through the same thing in there club. That is the first thing that I think will be a detriment to the abandonment of the contest: Before the competition the only other callers I have ever spoken to were the other people who called in my club: and the majority of them never wanted to call the numbers in the first place (and you could tell that by the bored tone in there numbers which would emanate across the club and destroy the session) the contest fueled my interest in the game and made me believe that being a caller was more than just 'calling the numbers' because there were people out there who were just as obsessed as me!!!

Brett Caller Of The Year

I think of the caller of the year in two ways: Firstly as an intensive attack on my nerves and abilities over the course of the contest. I remember my very first regional final when I had butterflies in my tummy about 2 days before the actual event and I remember banning my girlfriend from talking to me the night before as I had to memorise my routine for the 'entertainment' stage of the competition. This sort of unreasonable behaviour was more or less there in every final since: including the year I won, and after speaking to other contestants i was not on my own in the nerves stakes.

The other thing I think about is the media and press coverage garnered from the contest. The main thing about the whole event is bringing bingo to the masses-and throughout the whole process of the competition, from regional to national final i suppose you feel like a celebrity: You and your club are contacted by the local press, radio stations and sometimes the local TV about getting interviews. The main reason that the final of the competition is always held in London is because that is where you can achieve maximum exposure from a media perspective. Sky News have been at the event for the last few years and last year even though I was not a contestant I still had about half a dozen interviews with reporters and TV stations. In terms of hard cash, £652,000 is the total you would have had to spend if you wanted to pay for that kind of publicity in the 2007 competition!!!!

Obviously none of this is going on this year due to the competitions postponement and the person I feel sorry for most is the current champion Blake Robson: Of course he has the title and the prize money and the fantastic holiday (all good things) but its the other things that he will be missing out on like being a judge and experiencing other bingo halls across the country; not to mention the media opportunities that pop up during the course of the contest. Hopefully when they revamp the competition Blake will get the opportunity to experience those perils!!!!

3 Comments

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Dio Bach said...

Yeah, it seems very quiet this November, I've not had to chase up the regional heats or anything. Hope it comes back next year stronger than ever and involving Gala Bingo.

bingosupermarket said...

Hi
I cannot see the return of a truly independent caller of the year, its is funded through the national bingo game and the association. Since the withdrawal by Gala from both this had lead to a cash crisis and redundancies in the PR department of the National and Bingo Association thus nobody is actually around to fund and organise the events. The only option is perhaps for independent bingo clubs to agree a new format and club together to form a new competition. Venues will not be a problem, we have 6 all over England and would be willing to support such an event as it generates extremely good PR and revenues on the competition days. A former bingo caller of the year could advocate running the competition and we could also drum up some support through the association. It is a shame that we often judge and criticise those that take a valuable source of PR away from bingo, but I wish the people who criticise the decisions step up to the mark and instigate a return to a place that was once so valuable to them. This sort of competition does not take a great deal of expense, it does take time, dedication and leadership for it to succeed.

Chester said...

Although it?s a great idea to plan ahead I cannot help but feel that in anticipation of the smoking ban a climate of change was introduced that blew even the non-smokers away.

Scotland was offered up as a case study but really, until there is a problem there should be offered up no cure.

Being young and new to bingo the national game to me, pretty much justified my attendance to any one session for it?s similarity to a once off lotto ticket reassured somehow that I was still sane.

I now miss it as part of my session and feel that the of course necessary cancellation of this competition to boot is indication enough of poor strategy and planning within bingo. Altogether soul destroying.

But what?s to be done? I say fuse bingo and night clubs. Bring back the national game and reinstate this competition, on a grander scale.

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