Spotlight Eligibility & Category Rules

Eligibility Requirements

Applying to Spotlight is easy, but first make sure you are eligible to participate:

• You must be a Southern California high school student who attends a public, private, online or home school. Your home base must be in one of these counties: Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Kern, San Diego, Riverside or San Bernardino.
• You must be an enrolled high school student as of December 31, 2025. You may not be enrolled as a full-time college student.
• Dance and Ballet students need to check the category rules page for residency exceptions 
• You may apply to one or more of these categories: Acting, Ballet, Dance, Classical Voice, Non-Classical Voice, Classical Instrumental or Contemporary Instrumental.
• Previous grand prize finalists are not eligible
• Previous participants, Merit, Semifinalists and Honorable Mention awardees are eligible
• You may apply to more than one category; however, you will only be allowed to advance to the finals in one category, which will be determined by the category in which you advance to the finals first.
• You must participate in Semifinal auditions, final rehearsals, final performance filming and the live performance if you become a Grand Prize Finalist.
• All judges decisions are final.
• You must complete the online application by the deadline on October 13, 2025. Get your applications in early so you don't miss out!
• Prepare and upload your audition video (recorded November 2024 - October 2025). Don't get nervous, we are going to make this super easy. If you get stuck along the way, just email us at spotlight@musiccenter.org