There was a bit of a kerfuffle in the run-up to this year’s New Act of the Year final when co-founder Roland Muldoon bemoaned the quality of the new acts that had entered. He said that while the final line-up was strong, many of the wannabees in the auditions were "inexperienced, often corny and excruciatingly predictable". I can’t comment on those that didn’t make the grade, but the ones that did were indeed pretty good. Although it wouldn’t do any harm if there were less than 15 finalists.