Auditions for Simon Cowell’s search for a new One Direction-style boyband have failed drastically as barely 40 people turned up for the opportunity.
The music mogul behind reality TV contests The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent launched a nationwide search for a brand new pop group last month, as he lamented the absence of an act that has been able to replicate One Direction’s success. The search is to be the subject of forthcoming Netflix documentary, The Midas Touch.
The 64-year-old announced that the search would start on Thursday, but the first dates were cancelled with a single event taking place on Saturday in Liverpool.
Barely 40 people are said to have turned up at the height of the queue, according to The Sun. The news comes just days after the business mogul was hit with vitriol on TikTok for inviting a Liverpool band to attend.
“They started arriving slowly from about 9am on Saturday but the biggest number in the queue never amounted to more than about 40,” one person who saw the event unfold, told the publication.
“By early afternoon, the number arriving had virtually dried up and it was the same story on the Sunday audition.
“The amount of railings they put up suggested they were expecting hundreds or thousands of people to arrive and pack out the queues but they had a fraction of those kinds of numbers.”
The Independent has contacted representatives for Simon Cowell for comment.
It has been 14 years since Cowell and his fellow judges formed One Direction on The X Factor. After coming in second place in 2010, the group shot to worldwide fame and released several hit albums before their indefinite hiatus in 2016.
Since then, its five members Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne have embarked on solo careers with varying degrees of success.
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Cowell told the PA news agency that he is praying he will find a band “as good as One Direction and to find the records as good as they made”.
“You can’t fake this, even though I’m the one going out to do the auditions, it really depends on the individuals. If you find the right people I’m not someone who says dress like this, say this, do this, it is just not my style and I never once did that with One Direction,” he said.