Case Study: How 22 Students Scored a Sydney Opera House Gig through video auditions
How one Australian state government agency reduced administrative cost by 70% using video automation and gave 22 talented musicians a chance to perform on Australia’s most iconic venue – thanks to their mobile phone auditions
2,119
video auditions
687
NSW schools
-70%
admin reduction
- Every year talented performing and creative arts students from across New South Wales are selected to perform or exhibit their work at a series of HSC Showcase events organized by the NSW Educations Standards Agency.
- NESA uses Vloggi to collect mobile audition tapes from high school students across the state. The best were invited to perform live at Australia’s most iconic venue
- This includes the Encore concert held at the Sydney Opera House, where 22 performers, selected via video audition, take to the stage.
- VIDEO AUDITIONS
From Mobile Uploads to Centre Stage
- Every year, the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) selects the state’s top-performing HSC creative arts students for its prestigious showcase season — including live performances at the Sydney Opera House and the Seymour Centre. In 2024, NESA used Vloggi’s video audition platform to securely collect over 2,000 video submissions from 1,754 students across 687 schools
- The system replaced legacy workflows using YouTube links and spreadsheets, allowing judging panels to access tagged, branded and high-definition video auditions — all stored in compliance with government data policies. With adjudicator-only access, built-in voting, and powerful filtering tools, Vloggi streamlined the selection process and helped students launch their creative careers.
- From mobile upload to centre stage, Vloggi powered NESA’s digital transformation of student showcase curation.
- From ballet, jazz, and hip-hop dancing to xylophone duets, cello solos, string ensembles, improvisation plays, and multimedia video projects, the HSC Showcase Season captures the full spectrum of creative talent across New South Wales. These aren’t just school assignments — they’re glimpses of future stars in the making. In this case study, we explore how NESA transformed its showcase selection process using Vloggi’s video audition platform — streamlining submissions, safeguarding data, and spotlighting brilliance from classrooms across the state.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Client: NSW Education Standards Authority
Project: HSC Showcase – Video Auditions
Type: Secure student video audition portal
Summary: Ahead of the 2025 HSC Showcase Season, NESA used Vloggi to collect high-definition video audition submissions from Year 12 students across New South Wales. The platform replaced legacy workflows involving YouTube links and spreadsheets, allowing adjudication panels to filter, tag, vote, and collaborate securely on thousands of submissions. Selected students earned a place on stage at the Seymour Centre and Sydney Opera House.
- ABOUT NESA
The Authority Behind NSW’s Education Excellence
- The New South Wales Education Standards Authority (NESA) is the state’s independent statutory body responsible for curriculum, assessments, and teaching standards across all schools in NSW, Australia. NESA sets and monitors the Kindergarten to Year 12 syllabuses, accredits teachers and courses, and issues internationally recognised credentials including the Higher School Certificate (HSC) — awarded to students completing their final year of school — and the Record of School Achievement (RoSA), given to those who exit earlier.
- Unique in Australia, NESA unites curriculum, teacher accreditation, school compliance and student assessment under one umbrella — ensuring every student has access to a world-class education. Through initiatives like the HSC Showcase Season, NESA shines a spotlight on the best creative talent across public and independent schools, from metro Sydney to remote regional towns.
Why Video Auditions Are Essential for Student Showcases and Judging Panels
Because talent can’t always travel, but video can.
For state education bodies like NESA, the goal isn’t just to assess students — it’s to celebrate them. The HSC Showcase Season is about surfacing the most promising creative talent across New South Wales, from remote towns to inner-city schools. But finding that talent requires access, equity and efficiency.
Video auditions level the playing field. They allow students to submit their performances in high definition, from wherever they are — no travel required, no stage bookings, no expensive gear. For adjudicators, video submissions allow fairer comparisons, easier collaboration, and richer feedback. For administrators, it means clearer consent, better metadata, and rights-managed content that’s ready to be reused in marketing and archival materials.
In short: video auditions aren’t just a digital convenience — they’re a strategic enabler of inclusion, excellence and compliance.
For state education bodies like NESA, the goal isn’t just to assess students — it’s to celebrate them. The HSC Showcase Season is about surfacing the most promising creative talent across New South Wales, from remote towns to inner-city schools. But finding that talent requires access, equity and efficiency.
Video auditions level the playing field. They allow students to submit their performances in high definition, from wherever they are — no travel required, no stage bookings, no expensive gear. For adjudicators, video submissions allow fairer comparisons, easier collaboration, and richer feedback. For administrators, it means clearer consent, better metadata, and rights-managed content that’s ready to be reused in marketing and archival materials.
In short: video auditions aren’t just a digital convenience — they’re a strategic enabler of inclusion, excellence and compliance.
The Challenge - Managing Thousands of Student Video Auditions Securely and Efficiently
Before Vloggi, NESA relied on students uploading their audition videos to YouTube or Vimeo, marking them private, and pasting the links into a survey. This created a data nightmare — adjudicators had to sift through sprawling spreadsheets, links broke, videos were inaccessible, and worst of all, the content was technically owned by third parties, breaching NSW Government data privacy standards. There was no streamlined way to confirm consent, no consistent branding, and no mechanism to tag or sort content by curriculum area, school type, or region. Adjudicators couldn't easily collaborate or vote, and high-definition files — especially in dance and music — were often too large for traditional systems. NESA needed a single platform to securely collect, brand, tag, adjudicate and archive student performance videos — without compromising on privacy, quality or administrative efficiency. After trialling an in-house solution and coming across issues around the legality of downloading social media content and also the time taken to complete content assignment forms for every contributor, NESA needed a tool that could collect thousands of videos and also allow them to manage the content and rights permissions of students.
The Solution - A Government-Compliant Online Audition Portal for Education Authorities
NESA partnered with Vloggi to overhaul its video audition process from the ground up. Instead of chasing down links and juggling spreadsheets, students uploaded their performance videos directly via NESA branded, secure Vloggi forms embedded into nomination surveys. Each submission captured critical metadata — including student name, school, performance title, and ID — and all consent was logged digitally at the point of upload. Vloggi’s platform automatically watermarked each video with the official NSW Government Waratah crest and overlaid key details using showcase-specific branding, fonts and HSC Showcase iconography. This made every clip immediately identifiable as part of the official HSC Showcase Season. Behind the scenes, adjudicators were granted restricted access to specific showcase categories. They could vote, comment, shortlist favorites and sort entries by country or metropolitan school, public or independent, type of musical instruments were played or what type of dance recital it was, based on tags created by NESA staff. Bulk tagging and downloading made the final curation and storage process seamless. For the first time, NESA had a central, compliant, and collaborative system for video-based adjudication.
The Result - Scalable Digital Adjudication with Full Consent and Showcase Branding
In just weeks, NESA received 2,119 high-definition video audition submissions from 1,754 students across 687 schools, all processed securely through the Vloggi platform. Every submission was consent-cleared, fully branded, and tagged for instant access by adjudicators. The result? A 70% reduction in admin time for staff and a frictionless judging experience for panels across the state.
Selected students were invited to perform in world-class venues — from the Seymour Centre for OnSTAGE and Callback, to the Sydney Opera House for Encore, and the Walsh Bay Arts Precinct for Shape. For students, the incentive was extraordinary; for NESA, the process was finally modern, manageable, and compliant.
Vloggi didn’t just digitise the Showcase Season — it gave NESA a powerful, repeatable system to celebrate the state’s brightest creative talent on a national stage.
What NESA Says About Using Vloggi’s Video Submission and Judging Platform
“Vloggi transformed how we run our Showcase Season. It gave us the structure, security and flexibility we needed — while making it easier than ever for students to submit high-quality video auditions. What used to be a logistical nightmare is now a streamlined, collaborative process that our team and adjudicators actually enjoy using.”
