Inner Ear presents: The Beat Down Poetry

Name: Inner Ear presents: The Beat Down Poetry
Start: 2025-08-15T18:30:00-07:00
End: 2025-08-15T21:00:00-07:00
Location: 80 E Via del Parque, Fresno, CA 93720, United States

Schedule

Fri Aug 15 2025 at 06:30 pm to 09:00 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

80 E Via del Parque, Fresno, CA 93720, United States | Fresno, CA

We’re looking for Poets, Performances Artists, and Spoken Word Junkies who can MOVE a crowd with their words and ROCK A MIC to make the judges scream “10” on the score card. Is that you? Let YOUR VOICES be heard!
FANS, join us this month for another exciting installment as the Beat Down enters its 22nd year of bringing Spoken-Word Poetry to the Valley! Your hosts S. Bryan Medina and Michael Dominquez have planned another fun filled night of deep thoughts, hardy laughs, and intriguing stories.
POETS: Don't miss your chance to be involved with this awesome event with a big prize pool. To get your name on the list you must be sure to arrive early. No sign ups done online or ahead of time. First come, first served.
*The Beat Down is a SLAM poetry event where the winner after two rounds gets a cash prize. The charge is a $10 dollar admission to watch and $10 to compete against 9 other poets. The entry fee goes toward the prize for the winner and helps my co-host and I cover our overhead and to keep it going.
THERE WILL BE ELIMINATIONS AFTER THE FIRST ROUND!
After the first round, only the top scoring 5 of the 10 poets will move on to the second round. So be prepared to bring only your best works that will rock a crowd!
That means, have on you at least 3 pieces ready to roll. Two to perform, and one just in case of a tie (where we will then have an extra round to see who gets the best score). Ties do sometimes happen, so make sure you have something...
**THE RULES: All poets will be judged by 5 randomly picked judges that BEAT DOWN hosts choose from the crowd that night. Judges use a 0-10 point system to score the poets. The poets themselves have a 3 minute time limit to read their work, anything over that limit and they will receive a one point deduction for every 10 seconds they go over.
To combat judges posting high scores to friends who may be on stage, and to make it fair, the hosts DROP THE HIGH AND THE LOW AND KEEP THE MIDDLE THREE for the total in each round. (60 points possible for two rounds).
Poets are NOT ALLOWED to BRING PROPS, WEAR COSTUMES, or HAVE ANYONE WITH THEM ON STAGE. ALL SLAMMERS MUST PERFORM their own ORIGINAL WORK by either reading it from PAPER, MEMORIZING IT, OR GOING FREE STYLE to see who can move the crowd with their words and performance.
ALTHOUGH WE CALL OUR EVENTS “COMMUNITY FRIENDLY” WE DO NOT CENSOR THE LANGUAGE OR SUBJECT MATTER OF THE POETS!