Arkansas-Oklahoma State Fair<\/a> before she won Season 4 of the series, returns as one of the judges when the new season launches in 2026.<\/p>\nPatrick Lynn, senior supervision producer with \u201cAmerican Idol,\u201d has been with the program from the beginning. He recalled how even after Kelly Clarkson won the show, it wouldn\u2019t be able to pull off the same feat the following year, much less as it heads into its 24th season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have singers who have been on the show, and now their kids are old enough to audition. Do I feel old? Yeah, a little bit,\u201d Lynn said.<\/p>\n
He begins each audition by providing all the necessary instructions to be successful, including sound settings and camera positioning. While the audition format has changed in the past 24 years, one thing remains the same: Choose the right song and performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cPick a good song. Sing a good song, and perform a good song. All three of those things go hand in hand,\u201d Lynn said. \u201cIf you can do that consistently from the audition to the final show, you can win \u2018American Idol.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Lynn recognizes that people will be nervous, and it\u2019s his role to help them relax so they can perform their best. He said he\u2019s looking for potential, not perfection.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m looking for that diamond in the rough,\u201d Lynn said. \u201cI’m always trying to notice people, uh, that try to make themselves stand out. You know, personality is obviously a big part of it. Singing is a big part of it, but so is performance. The things I always stress to people that you really kind of need to, you know, dive headfirst, and don\u2019t be afraid of your song.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lynn has visited Arkansas in person a couple of times and has enjoyed his time here, listening to the talent that has emerged from the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like Arkansas. It\u2019s its own thing,\u201d Lynn said. \u201cWe like to go places that we\u2019ve had success. If you\u2019re from Arkansas and you\u2019re thinking, ‘They\u2019ve never picked anybody from Arkansas,’ that\u2019s not necessarily true. We like people from all walks of life. Maybe you\u2019ll be the first person from Arkansas to win ‘American Idol.’ You never know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lynn is asked what \u201cAmerican Idol\u201d is looking for, and he says it can\u2019t be narrowed down to a specific type of person or genre.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it when I see and hear it,” he said. “So it could be anybody. It\u2019s basically anybody\u2019s ball game. I encourage people to try out for American Idol all the time. There are any number of ways you can break into the business, and ‘American Idol’ is just one of them, and I think we have a pretty good track record for people who are stars in the making.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: Senior producer Patrick Lynn shares tips for American Idol auditionees<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“American Idol” hopefuls in Arkansas will get another audition date on Monday, Sept. 29. Arkansans can visit AmericanIdol.com\/auditions, select their state, and sign up for a time to audition. They will then be sent a Zoom link for the audition. The performer will get an audience with a producer from the comfort of their own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2051662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[27820,381068,22844,381069],"class_list":["post-2051661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-american-idol","tag-arkansas","tag-carrie-underwood","tag-patrick-lynn"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Arkansas-singers-get-another-shot-at-\u2018American-Idol-audition-Sept.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2051661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2051662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2051661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2051661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2051661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}