2. ABOUT THE JURY
a)  To determine all prizes and other awards (see Article 5), a Jury is composed by a president and eight judges.

b)  All Jury members are appointed by the EEB (European Executive Board). These appointments should be based on the qualifications of the candidates in both the art of Magic and that of judging magic performances. There should be a diversity of age and cultural background and all judges should be able to communicate in English. The EEB should also acknowledge continuity in FISM juries. Preferably there will be only one judge for any one country.

d)  Judges will be exempted from paying a convention registration fee, and will get free refreshments and meals during their judging time.

e)  The President of the jury will send a report of the contest results, with appropriate remarks and observations, to the EEB and a copy to the Presidium within one month of the closing of the convention.
 

3. ABOUT THE CATEGORIES
a) The contest performances are open in the following categories:

Stage performances Close-up performances
Manipulation
General magic
Stage illusions
Parlour magic
Mental magic
Comedy magic
Card magic
Micro magic

b) The Jury can issue awards for invention both in the stage and close-up competitions.

c)  If the judges are of the shared opinion that the act of a contestant should have been entered in another category, they are entitled to make such a change.
 

4. ABOUT THE CONTEST PERFORMANCE
a) A contestant is not allowed to present more than one act in one category in stage magic and in one category in close-up magic.

b) An invention can only be submitted within an act.

c) A performer who has been awarded a Grand Prix in a previous FISM WCM is not allowed to compete again with essentially the same act.

d) A contestant must present an act of at least five minutes and not more than ten minutes.

e) An act begins when the contestant enters the stage or when the music of the act starts, whichever comes first.

f) At the front of the stage will be two electric lamps, one yellow and one red. After nine minutes of a performance, the yellow lamp will be switched on. After the tenth minute, the red lamp will be switched on, showing the contestant that he or she is over time and therefore disqualified.  The contestant will also be disqualified in case of a flashing red lamp (Article 6d).

g) In introducing a contestant, the Master of Ceremonies of the competition will refrain from any comment on the act, restricting the announcement to the name of the contestant, the category of performance, the country and society and the name of the President(s) authorizing this participation in the contest.
 

5. ABOUT PRIZES AND AWARDS
a) Prizes
• In each category three prizes can be awarded by the jury: a first, a second and a third prize.
• One or more awards can be issued for invention. There is no hierarchy for awards for inventions. The jury, who will at least determine the invention to be a new effect or a new method or technique, will decide on these awards.

b) Special Contest Award
The Jury is entitled to award a special contest award “Most Original Act” to the act (in any category) that can justify such a decision.

c) Other awards
No other prize, award, distinction or gift can be given without the approval of the EEB and the President of the jury. This includes any prize or award given on behalf of a private company. Only contestants having received a prize or a (special) contest award, are eligible for an additional prize or award beyond those mentioned in the preceding paragraphs of this Article.

d) Only 1st Prize winners have a non transferable guaranteed participation in the next WCM.
 

6. ABOUT THE JUDGING PROCESS
a)  The jury will judge all the contestants' performances during the contest in order to determine who’s eligible for the prizes and awards as mentioned in Article 5, when appropriate.

b)  A member of the jury shall give a fair judgement on the performance of every contestant, without prejudice, with an equal level of critical standards in regard to the following six aspects:
• Technical Skill / Handling.
• Showmanship / Presentation
• Entertainment value
• Artistic Impression / “Routining”
• Originality
• Magic Atmosphere

c)  Jury members use the enclosed official judging form. Each judge will give a total score of up to 100 points to each contestant. After each contest performance, the part of the judging form below the dotted line will be collected by a member of the special staff as mentioned in Article 8a. Adding the scores of all judges and dividing the total by the number of judges, the final score will then be calculated.

d) Judges will each have access to a switch to activate the red lamp on the performing platform. If, after the first three minutes of an act, a judge is of the opinion that the performance is below the FISM level, he can press his button. When seven out of the nine judges have pressed their button, the system activates the red lamp which then starts flashing, meaning the contestant is disqualified. In the stage competition the curtain will close within twenty seconds after the red lamp started flashing.

e) At the conclusion of the competition, having seen the performances of all the contestants, the individual judges may reconsider their judgments and, with the approval of the President of the jury, will be given the opportunity to change some of their scores. These changes will be given to the special staff members who will recalculate the final scores.

f)  After all necessary calculations are complete, the list of final scores will be handed to the President of the jury, who will assemble all the judges in a meeting to determine who qualifies for the different prizes.

g) The prizes will be awarded to the highest scores in each category. To be awarded a first prize, a contestant must have a final score of at least 80 points. The final score must be at least 70 points for a second prize and at least 60 points for a third prize. A contestant with a final score lower than 50 points is considered below FISM level and will be disqualified.

h)  If no contestant has the required points for a given prize in a given category, that prize will not be awarded.

i) The list of prizes and other awards, will be kept secret until the official proclamation and presentation of the trophies to the winners. The declaration of the awards will be made in reverse order, beginning with the special contest awards, then the lowest prize and ending with the first prize.
 

7. ABOUT TITLES
A first-prize winner is entitled to use the title of ”European Champion” along with the category plus the year of its acquisition (e.g., “European Champion Stage Illusions 2008” or "European Champion Card Magic 2008").
 

8. ABOUT THE ADMINISTRATION
a) The Congress Organizer, in coordination with the EEB, will appoint an official timekeeper for the contests and a special staff who will assure a smooth-running judging process. Among other responsibilities, the jury staff shall collect the forms, do the necessary calculations, and take care of the well-being of the judges. The jury staff will keep all the scores strictly secret, revealing them to no one except for the jury.

b) The Congress Organizer will provide the necessary official judging forms, clipboards as well as diplomas.

c) Trophies and/or cups for the different prizes should be designed according to FISM specifications.

d) The EEB will send the contest rules and procedures to the judges no less than four weeks before the start of the Convention.
 

9. ABOUT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND BROADCASTING RIGHTS
a) The contestant is responsible for all necessary rights, licenses and administrative authorizations necessary for his act during the competition, payment inclusive. He shall transmit to FISM a list of all the music titles used in his act, including the name of the composer(s) and, if applicable, the name of the author(s) of the lyrics. In the absence of an appropriate copyright license, FISM may make reasonable efforts to obtain it and charge the resulting costs to the contestant. 

b) For the purpose of promoting the Art of Magic and for promoting FISM, the contestant authorizes FISM to archive and promote the contestant’s act. For that purpose he grants FISM the right to exploit the Intellectual Property Rights attached to his act, including all forms of radio and television broadcasting (for no more than 30 seconds), videogram distribution (video tape, compact disc, DVD, etc.), publishing exploitation (hard cover, soft cover, etc.), merchandising exploitation, internet exploitation or any other equivalent telecommunication network exploitation and music exploitation. “Intellectual Property Rights” means all intellectual property rights, such as the copyright, design and trade mark rights as well as other designations of a proprietary nature whether registered or otherwise.

c) In compensation of the rights granted to FISM, FISM shall provide the contestant, for his private use only, with one copy of his act on a DVD and, if available, one copy of a photograph of his performance during the competition.  Furthermore, if FISM produces TV-programmes of the competition for commercial purposes, in which a part of the contestant’s act is included for more than 30 seconds, the contestant will receive a lump sum per second performance time. The amount of this lump sum will be announced by FISM at the latest three months prior to the competition. The payment to the contestant will be made within 30 working days after the airing of the TV programme.