X Factor bosses at Talkback Thames and Syco will be shaking up the format further, by holding the “boot-camp” in front of a live audience.

Auditionees will now have to face off not only their competition and judges Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole, but also hundreds of members of the public to get through to the next round of the singing competition.

The boot camp round sees the contestants who made it through the first round of auditions return for a second go in front of the judges, singing a selection of songs, with more and more being eliminated in each round. Those who make it through the camp are assigned a mentor and invited to judges houses, where they compete to be one fo the 12 final acts in the ITV1 show.

The boot camp will be filmed on August 1 at Hammersmith Apollo in London.

The move follows Simon Cowell’s decision to move this year’s auditions from a closed room to in Britain’s Got Talent style auditions in front of hundreds of fans across the country.

He announced the format change in June to make the sixth series of the show “bigger and better” than previous ones.

July 29, 2009