The Grass Roots Open Mic is a musical open mic competition, open only to those under 30 years old with deliberately few other requirements.

The competition is the brainchild of musician Ben Ceccato working with Luke Piccolo and the theatre. Mr Ceccato said he wanted to inspire creativity and encourage songwriting in Griffith's young people.

"This year, it's a little bigger and a little better. We're still focusing on original music, which is the main drive of the competition," he said.

"It's to focus on fostering creativity and songwriting, and that goes beyond traditional guitar and vocals. If people are making music, if they're composing or writing songs, we want to hear it."

The show emphasises that all music styles are welcome, along with both individual musicians and full bands. The only stipulation is that entrants must have their own instruments and be aged under 30 years old.

The competition offers some spectacular prizes, including a paid gig as the opening act for A Day in the Orchard, and even a studio recording session at The CAD Factory.

"We've got some money put aside for that. In order to go into the running for that prize, you have to have written an original piece of music though," Mr Ceccato explained.

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The big change for this year is the introduction of a songwriting and performing workshop being run by Mr Ceccato.

He explained that they saw a number of promising musicians who were hesitant to share their own works.

"We saw a lot of people coming through who were a bit shy to play original pieces - I want to try and help people with that through my own experience and my own tools and tricks."

"My goal is to foster growth and creativity - it's going to be a big collaborative room, we're going to present some songs and talk about how we wrote them, and then we're actually going to write a song on the day."

The competition is now open for entries, through the Griffith Regional Theatre's website. Signups for the workshop are also now available but places are limited.

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