Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) is the world’s best-known ballet scholarship competition for young dancers — regional semi-finals around the world feeding a single international Finals, with scholarship offers from leading ballet schools on the line. Any studio, school or regional affiliate running a ballet or contemporary-dance competition on a similar structure faces the same organiser problem: three solo age divisions, a separate team/ensemble track, several entry formats with different time limits, and a scoring system that has to combine marks from several judges fairly. Here is how the real YAGP 2026 Rules and Regulations lay this out, and how to set up the same shape in eTalenter.
Three solo age divisions, counted on a single fixed date
YAGP’s age for the whole 2026 season is counted strictly as of 1 January 2026 — not the dancer’s age on the day they perform. The three solo divisions are:
- Pre-Competitive — ages 9-11 (born 2 Jan 2014 to 1 Jan 2017)
- Junior — ages 12-14 (born 2 Jan 2011 to 1 Jan 2014)
- Senior — ages 15-20 (born 2 Jan 2006 to 1 Jan 2011)
Pas de deux, duet/trio and ensemble entries don’t sit inside those three bands at all — they run in one shared Ensemble division (ages 9-20), because the printed rule measures the average age of the dancers on stage, not each dancer’s own band. A trio with a 10-year-old, a 14-year-old and a 19-year-old is eligible on its average, even though none of those three ages alone would put them in the same solo division.
Seven entry types, each with its own time limit
Every entry is one of seven formats, and the clock is different for each one:
| Entry type | Participant type | Time limit |
|---|---|---|
| Classical Variation | Individual | 2:30 |
| Contemporary/Open Solo | Individual | 2:00 recommended, 2:30 extended (extra fee) |
| Classical Pas de Deux | Team (Ensemble) | 6:00 |
| Contemporary Pas de Deux | Team (Ensemble) | 3:30 |
| Duet/Trio | Team (Ensemble) | 2:45 |
| Ensemble (4 dancers) | Team (Ensemble) | 3:30 |
| Ensemble (5+ dancers) | Team (Ensemble) | 5:00 |
The Contemporary/Open Solo’s 2:00 mark is installed as a warning time rather than a hard cutoff, matching how the rules describe it — a recommended length with a paid option to run longer, not a strict limit like the Classical Variation’s 2:30.
Scoring: a 100-point system, published only in general terms
YAGP’s rules describe scoring at a high level: each entry is marked out of 100 on two elements — artistic and technical — and each judge’s own score is the average of those two marks. The final score for the entry is then the average across all judges on the panel (usually three to five judges). No per-element weighting is published anywhere in the public rules, so this guide does not invent one — if your event follows the same shape, decide and publish your own artistic/technical split rather than assume one exists.
Placings are printed as First, Second and Third at each level, with no bonus points attached to them in the rules — so a First place does not carry an extra scoring boost on top of the raw marks. YAGP’s own Top 12 shortlist, the finals qualifying score of 96, and the Hope / Youth Grand Prix / Grand Prix special awards for the best overall performance in each division are real parts of the competition but are not something a generic judging-and-tabulation platform can model without inventing numbers the rules don’t publish — organisers running a similar multi-stage, scholarship-style competition should treat those as manual committee decisions layered on top of the scored rounds, not as an automatic export from the scoring software.
Setting this up as an event
A ballet or contemporary-dance scholarship competition on this pattern maps cleanly onto eTalenter’s existing building blocks:
- Age Groups — three Individual age groups (Pre-Competitive, Junior, Senior) on a fixed as-of date, plus one Team/”Common” Ensemble group spanning the full 9-20 range for every pas de deux, duet/trio and ensemble entry.
- Competition Items — Classical Variation and Contemporary/Open Solo as Individual items; Classical Pas de Deux, Contemporary Pas de Deux, Duet/Trio and the two Ensemble sizes as Team items, each with its own per-item time limit from the table above.
- Scoring Setup — a flat 100-mark scale per entry, with your own published breakdown between artistic and technical marks if you choose to publish one (the panel size and averaging method are an organiser decision, same as YAGP’s “usually three to five judges”).
- Judges & panel — assign multiple judges per item and let the tabulation average their marks automatically rather than tallying by hand between rounds, which matters when several regional semi-finals feed one Finals.
- Results & Ranks — First/Second/Third printed per division with no bonus points, keeping any scholarship, Top-N shortlist or special-award decision as a separate, manual step on top of the raw scores.
If your dance studio or regional affiliate runs heats or regionals that feed a single final the same way YAGP’s semi-finals feed its Finals, you can run each stage as its own event and carry qualifying dancers forward — the same pattern covered in our judge scoring & tabulation guide.
Frequently asked questions
Does a pas de deux count against the younger or older dancer’s age band?
Neither on its own — pas de deux, duet/trio and ensemble entries are judged in one shared Ensemble division (9-20) based on the average age of the dancers performing, not any individual dancer’s own solo age band.
Is there a published breakdown of what counts toward the “artistic” and “technical” marks?
No. The rules state only that the score is the average of an artistic mark and a technical mark out of 100, with no printed sub-criteria. Organisers following the same model should publish their own breakdown rather than assume one is standard.
Do First, Second and Third placings carry extra points?
No — the rules print these as named placings with zero bonus points attached, distinct from the raw marks each entry already earned.
Can a scoring platform automatically produce a Top 12 or decide scholarship winners?
Not from the published rules alone — the finals-qualifying score and the special overall-performance awards are organiser/committee decisions layered on top of the scored rounds, not a rule a platform can calculate on its own.
What if our contemporary solo runs past the recommended 2:00?
In the source rules, 2:00 is a recommended length with a paid 2:30 extension, not a hard cutoff like the Classical Variation’s 2:30 — set it as a warning time rather than a strict maximum if you want to mirror that distinction.
Want to run a ballet, contemporary-dance or any other judged competition with age divisions, a separate team track and multi-judge scoring on eTalenter? Open a live demo — no signup needed — or message us on WhatsApp or support@etalenter.com for help setting up your own age groups, items and scoring rules. We only help with the eTalenter software itself, not with your own choreography or entries.
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