Search “hula competition” and most pages describe the dance style, not how it’s actually judged and placed. Hawaii’s best-known hula competition, the Merrie Monarch Festival, runs on a division grid rather than a single “best dancer” trophy: group Hula Kahiko (ancient-style hula) and group Hula Auana (modern-style hula) each split into Wahine (women) and Kane (men) divisions, plus a separate Miss Aloha Hula solo competition open only to women. If you’re organising any hula, Polynesian dance, or cultural-dance competition — a diaspora event, a school cultural night, or a standalone festival modelled on this format — that division grid, not the dance style itself, is the part worth setting up correctly.
A division grid, not one flat event
| Division | Who competes | Participation type |
|---|---|---|
| Hula Kahiko (Group) | Wahine and Kane, run separately | Team |
| Hula Auana (Group) | Wahine and Kane, run separately | Team |
| Miss Aloha Hula (Solo) | Wahine only | Individual |
Treating this as “one hula competition, one winner” is the mistake to avoid. There are effectively five separate contests running under one festival name — Wahine Kahiko, Kane Kahiko, Wahine Auana, Kane Auana, and the Miss Aloha Hula solo — each judged and placed on its own.
Real awards include a combined “Overall” title
Beyond placements within each division, the festival also prints a combined award that spans both styles: a 1st Place Wahine Overall and 1st Place Kane Overall, calculated across a group’s Kahiko and Auana performances together rather than either style alone. The Miss Aloha Hula solo competition carries its own separate honour too — a Hawaiian Language Award, recognising command of the language within the performance, awarded alongside the placement itself. Five places are typically awarded in Wahine Kahiko, Wahine Auana and Miss Aloha Hula, with up to four in Kane, varying by how many halau (dance schools) enter that year.
No published scoring rubric — and that’s a real finding, not a gap to paper over
Unlike many judged arts competitions, the festival does not publish a numeric criteria list, point scale, or age/eligibility rule. The breakdown of “footwork, hand gestures, costume” sometimes quoted online comes from news interviews with judges, not from any official rules document — so this guide doesn’t present that breakdown as the festival’s actual rubric. For software setup purposes, that’s useful information on its own: it means the event is organised around comparative ranking by a judging panel within each division, not a published points formula, and any event you run on this model should decide and publish its own criteria rather than borrow an invented one.
Setting this up correctly
- Set up each division — Wahine Kahiko, Kane Kahiko, Wahine Auana, Kane Auana — as its own Team item, scored and placed independently.
- Set up Miss Aloha Hula as a separate Individual, Wahine-only item.
- Configure a combined Overall award per gender that pulls from both the Kahiko and Auana results for the same group, rather than from either style alone.
- If you want a language or presentation honour alongside the main placement (as the festival does with its Hawaiian Language Award), set it up as an additional named award tied to the same item rather than a second scoring scale.
- Decide and publish your own judging criteria rather than relying on an informal breakdown — the source event itself doesn’t publish one.
eTalenter supports this kind of multi-division event inside one competition: each division can be configured as its own item with its own participant type and gender split, a combined cross-item “Overall” result can be calculated across related items for the same group, and additional named honours can sit alongside a numeric placement without forcing everything onto one scale.
FAQ
Is there one overall winner of a Merrie Monarch-style hula festival?
No single winner — Wahine and Kane divisions are judged separately in both Kahiko and Auana styles, plus a standalone Miss Aloha Hula solo competition, with a combined Overall award calculated per gender across both group styles.
Do men and women compete against each other?
No. Wahine (women) and Kane (men) run as entirely separate divisions in both Hula Kahiko and Hula Auana, each with its own placements.
Is there an official points scale or scoring rubric for hula competitions?
The festival this format is based on does not publish one — placements come from a judging panel’s comparative ranking within each division, not a published numeric formula, so organisers running their own event on this model should set and publish their own criteria.
Can a solo dancer also compete in the group divisions?
Miss Aloha Hula is a standalone solo competition separate from the group Kahiko/Auana divisions, so a dancer’s participation in one does not affect eligibility for the other.
See it before you set it up
Open a eTalenter live demo and log in as a demo coordinator or judge — no sign-up needed — to see multi-division team items, gender-split scoring, and cross-item Overall awards configured in practice. For the wider setup, see our competition management software overview and the judging & tabulation guide, or our Naadam Three Manly Games software article for another multi-event festival run under one name. Reach us on WhatsApp at +91 96056 56508 or support@etalenter.com for help setting up your own multi-division dance festival.
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