2025 Songwriting Competition Rules and Instructions

DEADLINE is 11:59PM HST on Friday, May 23, 2025.  

Registered attendees** may submit one (1) song to the 2025 Hawai'i Songwriting Festival songwriting competition. Please follow the instructions below.

This competition is held in conjunction with the Hawai'i Songwriting Festival and is entirely optional. 
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**Only registered conference attendees are eligible to submit.

Quality recordings are appreciated, but the entries are judged on the songwriting, not the recording, performance, or presentation of the song. Rough demos are acceptable. 

Six to ten finalists will be chosen and announced at the opening ceremony on the first day of the conference (May 29), and must be present at the conference on May 31, 2025 in order to be considered a finalist.  They will each perform their song that evening for all the attendees, and a panel of judges (selected staff mentors) will choose 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners.  

In addition to receiving various prizes from our sponsors, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners will perform their winning song in the concert on Saturday night (May 31).

After reading the rules on this page, email your entry (with a lyric sheet) to [email protected] with "2025 Contest Entry" as the subject line.  

You may send a mp3 or direct us to a link on SoundCloud, BandCamp, etc. 

Submission information and rules:
**If you do not follow these rules, your entry will not be considered!

1. To submit your song, you must first be registered to attend the 2025 Hawai'i Songwriting Festival. Entries from people who have not registered to attend will not be considered.  
2. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners from 2024 cannot enter again in 2025, but all other previous finalists and winners can enter this year.
3. All entries must be accompanied by a lyric sheet.
4. For the purposes of the competition, a song must have both lyrics and music.
5. All songs must be original, unpublished songs that have been written or co-written by the entrant(s). For competition purposes, "unpublished" means not published by a major music publishing organization.
6. Only amateur songwriters (including co-writers) are allowed to submit entries to the competition. For competition purposes, "amateur" is defined as anyone who has never had any song they wrote appear on any of the Billboard charts.
7. Prizes for the Songwriting Competition will be announced at the event.  (For reference, past prizes have included various guitars, ukuleles, cajon drums, and recording equipment.)

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