Archive
Psychedelia 2014 – Alien Abduction!
The theme for SBS X Psychedelia is Alien Abduction!
Hunter Damiani created this awesome SBSX art around our Psychedelia theme. Don’t forget to get your limited-edition t-shirt before we sell out. T-shirts are free with a SBSX Season package or you can get one for $25 at the front desk.
Part of what makes Psychedelia amazing is all the tape art and props and special performers, and part of it is all the amazing glowing costumes! We’ve been hard at work getting the gym ready, and we hope you’ve been finding creative ways to make yourself glowingly amazing.
Every year we get tons of questions about what glows and what doesn’t. To help clear things up, last year we made a long post about all kinds of costume fluorescents. Read it here: Psychedelia – What Glows and What Doesn’t?. Remember, this year’s theme is ALIEN ABDUCTION!
Be an alien, be a UFO, be an abductee! We love seeing how creative everyone gets with their glowing costumes and we can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with this year!
Oh yeah, and if you haven’t been before or don’t know, every year Psychedelia puts the gym at capacity, so if you want to come (and you do, trust us) we recommend pre-registration for spectators and climbers. Click here to pre-register for Psychedelia.
See you at The Spot!
Psychedelia Pro Final Results!

Alex Puccio (in all pink) climbing O8 in the redpoint round of Psychedelia. Huge skull art by Hunter Damiani.
More photos and info tomorrow, but here are the top results from the Pro Final:
Women
1. Megan Mascarenas
2. Tiffany Hensley
3. Alex Puccio
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Men
1. Matty Hong
2. Nicholas Milburn
3. Garrett Gregor
Psychedelia Schedule + Setting + Pre-Registration Special!
Psychedelia is coming up this weekend!
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Setting & Closure Schedule
We will strip the BEACH and the DOJO on Tuesday night starting at 10pm. They will be closed until the comp.
Wednesday night starting at 10pm we will begin stripping the rest of the gym. You will be able to climb until regular gym closing at 11pm.
The gym is closed THURSDAY and FRIDAY for Psychedelia setting and decoration. Spot members will be able to climb for free at the BRC on these days and on comp day.
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Psychedelia Saturday
Youth Psychedelia
10am – registration opens, pre-registrants can check in
11am – Youth C and D climbing begins
Noon – Youth B, A, and Junior and Raffle begin
3:30pm – Youth session over
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Adult Psychedelia
5pm – registration opens, pre-registrants can check in
6pm – climbing begins
7:30pm – beer and burrito service begins
9pm – climbing ends, raffle/costume contest start
9:30/9:45 – Pro Finals
More Raffle
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Pre-Registration!
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week The Spot is running a pre-registration special. Pre-register for your Competitor or Spectator entry and we will donate $5 of every entry for the next three days to the flood relief efforts. There is still much to do to recover from the flood, and The Spot wants to keep helping our community return to normal and get our open spaces and climbing areas reopened. If you are coming to Psychedelia pre-register to help out our community!
The Spot Bouldering Gym Psychedelia Pre-Registration
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Finally, if you are coming to the comp you’ll want to glow. You may even want to win our costume contest. Read this article: Psychedelia Blacklight Costumes – What Glows and What Doesn’t? + 2013 Theme: Day of the Dead! to learn how to make a costume that looks amazing.
See you at Psychedelia!!!
Psychedelia Blacklight Costumes – What Glows and What Doesn’t? + 2013 Theme: Day of the Dead!
One of the biggest questions people have about Psychedelia is: “What should I wear?” With this post we hope to help you figure that out by sharing what we’ve learned over the years about black lights and reactive costumes and accessories. Below are some notes and products that we’ve found that work.
When you are searching, learn to look for popping fluorescent (not just neon) and the “hyper-white” which is the nearly fluorescent looking white color you will see in some clothing, feathers, and other costume parts. This white will often glow like gangbusters, where other whites will look dull or not glow at all. Many products will specify whether or not they are black light appropriate. Key words to look for are fluorescent and/or black light reactive and/or UV reactive.

Successful whites from costume contest winners Siegfried and Roy and the white tigers, aka Matt and Sandy Wilder, Jon Glassberg and Paige Claassen.
If there is any question for glow, a portable black light flashlight is the safest way to check, or you can bring your item down to The Spot in the weeks before Psychedelia and check it out in our black light boxes. We use REAL black lights at The Spot, not just purple or UV lights, and anything claiming to react to real black light should shine like a champ.

A little black light flashlight can be used for testing. Between $6 and $15 on Amazon or at McGuckins.
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Whites
Unfortunately many white fabrics, tapes, plastics, and other items will not glow as much as you might hope. Besides looking for the fluorescent hyper-white, here are some notes:
White clothing can go either way. Anything with a lot of white threads will often glow. Once you learn to see it, you can often tell from looking at the thread whether or not it will pop.
Screen-printed whites usually WON’T glow.
White embroidery usually WILL glow.
Cottons, especially 100% white or heathered cotton clothing, usually will glow. So will most spandex.
Bleach and bleached items will glow. There are types of laundry detergent that will cause fabric to glow or to glow better.
Other colored fabrics will sometimes glow very well if they have a white cotton thread base.
White thread t-shirt trim will often glow, so even if your shirt doesn’t glow your threads sometimes will.
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Fluorescent Fabric
Fluorescent fabric depends on the fabric. Fluorescent yellow is usually the brightest.
Fluorescent spandex will often glow really well.
Cheap women’s fluorescent spandex undies from Target or similar stores will often look amazing and can be worn over tights for the short-shorts look.
Body suits work too.
Fluorescent netting often looks like it should glow, but plastic-based usually won’t. Fabric/cotton based usually will.
It is extremely hard to tell which fluorescent fabrics will and won’t glow without the black light test.

You can get fluorescent thread to add detail to your costume. Available at Jo Anne’s and online. Glows really well.
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Accessories
Wigs can go either way, depending on the base material.
Many types of white and fluorescent feather and fur will glow well.
Fluorescent poster boards glow very well and offer lots of costume options as they are cheap and easy to draw on and cut and tape together.
Cheap plastic fluorescent or black light reflective items will often glow very well and not break the bank.

We haven’t tried these, but they look like they’d be amazing! Furry black light reactive booties. Come in orange and green. Not good for climbing, but great for costumes!

These are cheap and glowed really well. Seemed to fit adult heads just fine unless you have a head bigger than size 7.5.
Creative uses for poster board. The year before these guys won the costume contest as a pair of giant highlighters.
Spray paint and body paint will glow if they say fluorescent. Check out Casey’s radioactive man!
Fluorescence in paint, tape, clothes, plastic, fabric, make-up, hair gel, hair spray, fake eyelashes, nail polish…pretty much anything with actual fluorescent added to it will look amazing. Use a blacklight to check!
With body paint you can give the impression of floating bones, wings, or whatever else you want to paint on your body.
Highlighters glow and can be used to decorate skin (not sure if it’s recommended, but it works).
Laundry Detergent with any type of bleach or bleach substitute will usually glow and cause things painted or washed in it to glow.
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Light-Creating Accessories
Glow Sticks, Glow Jewelry, El Wire, and Christmas Lights
Glow sticks or jewelry of any type and small lights in reds, blues, greens, purples, pinks, and neon yellows are appropriate for Psychedelia. Clear or white lights are interruptive to your eyes at Psychedelia and so not appropriate. The little packages of glow sticks for $1 at Michael’s Art Stores don’t work very well, so are not recommended.
Blacklight balloons glow fairly well.
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El Wire
Popular for Burning Man, also awesome for Psychedelia and other black light events, electroluminescent wire is a thin, flexible string that glows like nobody’s business. The power pack is small and light so you can stick it to your body or clothing without too much disruption, then use the wire to make your costume fantastic!
Available at McGuckin’s or online in various colors. McGuckin also has some light up flat strips that are pretty cool.
Or: Amazon.com: 9ft Lime Green Neon Glowing Electroluminescent Wire (El Wire) (Also available and fine for Psych in blue, neon orange, neon yellow, neon pink.)
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Glow in the Darks
Glow-in-the-dark items do not usually “pop” so they are not so good for Psychedelia. Known exceptions – glow in the dark spray paint (Krylon), glow in the dark chalk, glow stars and planets.

We used this glow spray paint to paint the knobs in the Dojo and it worked great. Probably not good to put on your skin, but it can be great for making costumes. They have it at McGuckin.
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Gaffer’s Tape
Gaffer’s tape is a cotton cloth based tape that is normally used in stage and production work. The gaffer is the head of the lighting department on a film crew, and the lighting department uses this kind of tape to hang things and tape wires, cords, and cables. The tape is very strong and removes cleanly, unlike duct tape which often leaves residue. Some gyms use gaffer’s tape all the time, but we prefer regular duct tape for most of the year. For one reason, gaffer’s tape is generally 3-4x more expensive than duct tape per roll. A 2″ wide roll of gaffer’s fluorescent can cost $20 or more.
Because of the cotton-cloth base, many types of gaffer’s tape may offer some glow, but only the fluorescent colors (orange, pink, green, yellow) offer the real blacklight reactivity and “pop” we are looking for with Psychedelia. White doesn’t work as well as you might expect.
We use over 50 rolls of 1″ gaffer’s tape in these four colors to tag the problems and decorate the gym each year. Some companies will offer these fluorescent bases with additional patterns–camo, triangles, hearts, stars and moons, celtic knots, and more–which give some variety; however, we usually turn each problem into its own work of art, so the specific color/pattern of the base tape is not that important at Psychedelia as long as it glows.
Also important to note, some rolls of pink/orange and yellow/green will look the same in blacklight, but others will not. This is because sometimes a company will use, for example, orange fluorescence to make the orange rolls and the pink rolls glow. The colors look different in regular light, but in blacklight the color of fluorescence is what you see, so they will look the same. We’ve had the same company send us pinks that looked orange and pinks that looked pink, all in the same batch. You can check this roll by roll with a portable black light flashlight.

Awesome. In the direct center of this picture is a hanging tire covered in fluorescent gaffer’s tape. It really glows!
Gaffer’s tape rips more cleanly, easily, and evenly than duct tape. Because of this, gaffer’s is good to use for decoration as you can rip different widths of tape off the roll. You can also purchase rolls of varying width; local tape company Identi-tape has 1/4″, 1/2″, 1″, and 2″ options and can often do custom batches of bigger or smaller rolls with patterns on them. Perhaps you’ve seen the tape they made for E-Grips, The North Face, The Access Fund, or Atomik Holds. They also provided the 2″ Caution Cable tape we used for finals tape in 2012.
Gaffer’s can make some great costume additions, as you can make things like suspenders and leashes out of it by taping two pieces together, or by taping it around existing fabric, plastic, or whatever else you’ve got going on. It won’t work well when the fabric stretches, as the stretch will break the adhesive and the tape will come off.
Where to buy: you can order gaffer’s tape online from many retailers. We get ours from either Bron or Identi-Tape. You can order online from Identi-tape here:
IDENTI-TAPE – 1-inch Gaffer Tape (different widths available, we usually use 1″ and 1/2″)
IDENTI-TAPE – Camouflage (Camo) Tape
IDENTI-TAPE – Gaffer Symbols Tape (fancy gaffers, with symbols)
Only the fluorescents–pink, yellow, orange, green–will “pop” under the black light.
Identi-tape has other awesome tapes as well for hula-hoop decoration and other uses. Some of the hula-hoop tapes glow but they are not as flexible or sticky as gaffer’s so we can’t use them for wall decoration. They might work well for costumes. Identi-tape has a black light in store so they can check for you, or they can send samples. The ones we tested (all non-gaffers) that worked were:
IDENTI-TAPE – Colorful Holographic Sequin Tape (fluorescent colors)
IDENTI-TAPE – Colored Prismatic Tape (fluorescent green and yellow, don’t know about pink)
IDENTI-TAPE – Decorative Glitter (Sparkle) Tape (fluorescent green and yellow)
“Glow in the Dark” tapes usually aren’t that great for Psychedelia, as they glow dully in the black light.
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Other things to consider
It is fairly dark at Psychedelia and there are many people. Make sure your costume doesn’t drag on the ground and there aren’t lots of protruding parts to snag on holds or poke other people. Also, if you do paint your hands only paint the backs to avoid making the holds dirty or slippery.
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Click here to check out the Psychedelia 2012 Photo Gallery for more inspiration!
So that’s it! Now you know how to make a costume that glows. What will you do? Well, for starters, our 2013 Psychedelia theme is…
The Day of the Dead!
This theme gives you tons of room to be creative, as one of the main parts of the Day of the Dead costume is the white (make sure to get glowing white!) skull mask. Beyond that, anything goes!
So there’s the theme, there are the tips, run with it! We’re excited to see what everyone comes up with!!!
More Psychedelia Photos! + Videocast
Yay! Here are a few of our favorites, link to full album at the bottom of the page.
To see more: Psychedelia 2012 Photos
See video of the whole event, as the videographers become progressively more drunk, here – Psychedelia 2012 Boulder VideoCast
Psychedelia 2012 – First Photo Dump
Melinda Rider of tape supplier Identi-tape sent us some photos. Check out a few here, then click the link for the rest in our Facebook gallery. Thanks Melinda!
Psychedelia 2012 Pro Final Results

Setter Jon Glassberg and Matt Wilder as Seigfried and Roy, Paige Claassen and Sandy Wilder as the tigers at the 2012 Psychedelia Costume Contest
Full results coming soon, but here are a few photos and the results of the open final. Finalists were the top 6 men and women from the youth and adult session combined scores, they got preview, then 4 minutes each for attempts on the final, if you got on the wall at 4 minutes you got to finish your attempt, onsight format so competitors couldn’t watch until they’d climbed.
Men’s Final
Men’s final was on the mega volumes on the Font boulder and was set mostly by Jonny and Jon, with some help from Danny. The finalists order was a little off as we misplaced a scorecard and there was some confusion about Greg Seitz. Greg ended up running first in finals (meaning he qualified last) though he really qualified 2nd or 3rd overall. Greg gave an amazing attempt, nearly flashing the boulder, but he fell off touching hold 13 and wasn’t able to get back up there.
Second out was Owen Graham. Owen is Team Texas alumni and has spent the last couple of years attending college in Fort Collins. He is a strong young lad and did well on the final, working his way up the volumes to a score of hold 10 on his 3rd go.
Third out was Matt Lubar. Lubar was a long-time Spot Team Member who for the last couple of years has been with Team ABC. He’s an awesome guy and we were really psyched to see him in finals. He gave an astounding performance, sending the problem on his 2nd go to the screams of the crowd. Nice job Lubar!!!
Fourth out was Matt Wilder. Wilder is a famous rock climber, guidebook author, and underground genius with many hard first ascents of boulder problems and scary trad climbs to his name. He’s also a regular fixture at Spot Series events and has been in pro finals many, many times. Above you’ll see a photo of him winning the costume contest. In finals he gave a good show, using his trad skills to static through a dynamic move near the top. Unfortunately his feet slipped and the next go was the same, giving him a score of hold 10, 2nd go.
Fifth out was Sergei Kiefel, also a long-time Spot Team Member who moved teams a bit in his teens before setting out on his own. He’s a great climber who is just getting stronger and stronger, and he came into the final looking very fit before he spun a hold, taking a technical as it immediately dropped him to the ground. The next two goes weren’t great but last go he worked his way up to hold 10.
Finally Gun Show 2012 Winner and top qualifier Ben Hoberg came out. He slipped his first go, but 2nd go he crushed the problem and topped out the boulder. The crowd went wild. Nice job Ben!
Men’s Final Scores
1. Ben Hoberg (top 2nd go, 1st place qualifier)
2. Matt Lubar (top 2nd go, qualified lower)
3. Greg Seitz (hold 13-)
4. Matt Wilder (hold 10, 2nd go)
5. Sergei Kiefel (hold 10, 3rd go)
6. Owen Graham (hold 10, 3rd go, qualified lower)
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Women’s Final
Women’s final involved two hanging dog bones and a rotating pipe on the Hueco Boulder. There were a few rules (don’t get stuck in the ropes, don’t crawl over the top of the pipe, don’t hit your head on the bones, and don’t forget to pat the bat!).
ABC climber Isabelle Goodacre came out first. Isabelle has done pro finals at the Spot before but not yet this season. She did well, managing the bones and the transition to the pipe before falling off grabbing hold 10. She did the same thing twice more, nearly holding the usable portion of hold 10 for a score of 10-.
ABC climber Laurel Todd was next and gave a dominating performance on the bones and the rotating pipe, falling as Isabelle did trying to stick the swing on hold 10. Score: 10-.
Hailey Bridgewater was next. I’d never met Hailey before but she is a strong young woman from Iowa who is now going to school in Fort Collins. Hailey climbed well, but she said she’d never encountered features like the bones and rotating pipe before and she had a little trouble working them out. She figured it out 2nd go, then fell moving toward hold 10 but not sticking it. Score: 9+.
ABC climber and Gun Show 3rd place winner Margo Hayes was up next. Margo came out, got set on the start holds, then promptly misjudged the move to the swinging bones and fell. She looked a little surprised to have fallen, and with renewed determination jumped back on the problem, got through the bones and across the pipe, stuck hold 10, hung the difficult swing, then hiked her way to the top. The crowd went crazy. Nice job Margo!
Spot Coach Tiffany Hensley was next and she gave a great performance, moving left hand to hold 10 instead of her right. She then matched, then hit hold 11 and nearly hold 12 but she was in a weird body position and fell. Next go she looked similarly strong but again got a bit backwards, moving solidly to hold 12 with her right hand, but she was unable to unfold herself. Score: 12.
Finally Gun Show winner Nina Williams came out. Nina has been looking stronger and stronger in competition for the last two years and she’s been doing quite well. Here she looked ready to flash, but fell as everyone else but Margo did on the move to hold 10. Next go Nina stuck it and finished the problem to secure first place as she qualified higher than Margo and they climbed the final in the same number of tries.
Women’s Pro Final Results
1. Nina Williams (top 2nd go)
2. Margo Hayes (top 2nd go, qualified lower)
3. Tiffany Hensley (hold 12)
4. Laurel Todd (hold 10-. 1st go)
5. Isabelle Goodacre (hold 10-, 1st go, qualified lower)
6. Hailey Bridgewater (hold 9+)
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Some little aliens crawling out a busted ship. Part of the elaborate tape art that makes up Psychedelia!
Stay tuned for full comp results and more photos soon!
Thanks for coming out and we hope you had a great time at Psychedelia!!!
Have you registered for Psychedelia yet?
Don’t forget to pre-register! It’ll save you time and hassle on comp day, and even if you haven’t been to the gym before you can fill out all your documents online!
Psychedelia 2011 Wrap-Up and Results + A Bunch of Photos
Psychedelia 2011 was the best Psychedelia yet! Innovative new features for climbing on, some truly amazing tape art, fire dancers, and even a trapeze act made this the most off-the-wall event we’ve ever thrown at the Spot! Read on for stories, results, and media from this one-of-a-kind event.
Set Up
The setters started out on Tuesday night by stripping the Beach and the Dojo. Wedensday those were set, and Wednesday night we stripped the rest of the gym. Thursday we set all day and installed several special features (see below). Friday we left the gym to the crews of volunteers and Spot staff who came in to set up the lights, decorate, and make sure the gym looked just right. Here are a couple pieces of tape art, much more is in pictures down lower.
The Comp
The comp itself happened in two sessions–youth and adult–with youth being further broken into staggered sessions to allow the youngest kids to climb for an hour without a bunch of big kids trying to climb around them. Because Psychedelia is so dark and different from normal climbing, we felt this would allow the younger categories some time to get comfortable with the blacklight climbing before things got crazy. In the end over 180 kids showed up for the staggered youth sessions. 35 of those kids were with Team ABC, making them the Team Competition winners again, though the BRC and Spot teams were right behind with 31 and 30 kids, respectively. After youth climbing we fed the group Wahoo’s and drinks, gave away a bunch of stuff with the kids raffle, then kicked everyone so we could prepare for the adult session.
The adult session started at 6 and ran until 9. Over 260 mostly-costumed adults climbed their way through the many special features we put up for this comp including:

Multi-colored volume on the Native side of the Font Boulder. Painted by Hunter Damiani. If you haven't been to the Spot lately and are wondering what that green thing is on the right side of the Font, scroll down to find out.

Side view of the Grab Bag, the Dojo, and part of the Yosemite wall. You can see the open Coffin in the far right of the photo.

The Slide! We screwed a playground slide to the wall, and a crafty volunteer turned it into a giant fly!
Special Events
After climbing there was Wahoo’s food, Avery beer, Mix 1, and several special events, including a costume contest which was won by the fabulously dressed Crimp Chimps Gorilla, fire dancers, a huge raffle, and a blacklight trapeze act by Vertical Girl Jenn Quattrocchi. To see a video of the trapeze act, click here – GIRL BETA » Static Trapeze Artist: Jenn Q
And Finally…
The Open Final happened after the Adult regular session. The top 6 men and 7 women (there was a tie for women’s 6th place) each got four minutes to try their luck on the Men’s or Women’s Open Final Problem. For results and breakdown, click the link below.
For the Open Finals Breakdown click here – Psychedelia 2011 Open Finals Result « The Spot Route Setting Blog
Thanks for coming out everyone! See you at Highlines & Highballs December 3rd!
Psychedelia Results!
Here are the unofficial results. Unofficial because there is still a contest period for people who feel they didn’t get enough points, or got too many. I’ll write the 1st 2 places of each category and click the links at the bottom for the rest.
Adult
Masters
Women – 1. Lisa Youngwerth
Men – 1. Steve Woods 2. Pete Youngwerth
Rec
Women – 1. Kelly Puzak 2. Danielle Lovely
Men – 1. John Perrine 2. Alex Nelson
Intermediate
Women – 1. Caitlin DeVries 2. Risa Scott
Men – 1. Zachary Young 2. Jeff Schaefer
Advanced
Women – 1. Mercedes Pollmeier 2. Taylor Nystrom
Men – 1. Mike Rohsler 2. Jordan Romig
Open (pre-finals, adult session scores only. Actual results for the top 6 were determined by the Open Final Problem–see link below)
Women – 1. Sierra Blair-Coyle 2. Nina Williams
Men – 1. Alex Johnson and Matty Hong tied for first. 3. Garrett Gregor (Spot setter! But obviously he didn’t set for this event.)
The Open Pro Final took the top 6 competitors (7 women because of a tie) from both sessions of the comp combined to one single finals problem. For Open Finals Results click here.
Full Psychedelia Adult Results
Youth
Junior
Girls – 1. Mica Hartman (BRC) 2. Katelyn Hudspeth (BRC)
Boys – 1. Austin Wilkerson (R&J) 2. Aaron Bugh
A
Girls – 1. Laurel Todd (ABC) 2. Tika Anderson (Spot)
Boys – 1. Remi Arata (BRC) 2. Stefan Lavender (ABC)
B
Girls – 1. Megan Mascarenas (ABC) 2. Margo Hayes (ABC) *Megan, age 13, also won the aduolt open portion of the comp.
Boys – 1. Austin Lankford (ABC) 2. Shawn Raboutou (ABC)
C
Girls – 1. Ivy Todd (ABC) 2. Rebecca Debalski (Team Colorado)
Boys – 1. Timmy Dolan (ABC) 2. Finn Stack (ABC)
D
Girls – 1. Brooke Raboutou (ABC) 2. Ella Greene (The Spot)
Boys – 1. Thomas Savage (Mojo) 2. Joe Goodacre (ABC)