After becoming the UK Air Guitar Champion in June of this year, and shortly after a television debut on 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, the comedian travelled to Oulu, Finland to compete in a Air Guitar World Championships against 25 other hopefuls from countries as far flung as Japan and Brazil, ultimately securing Britain a 4th place position, just behind USA and France, who tied for 3rd, and Japan and Finland in the top 2nd and 1st positions.

The World Air Guitar Championships were established in 1996 with a mission statement of bringing about world peace, under the motto Make Air, Not War! and with the mantra that “You can’t hold a gun whilst you’re holding an air guitar”. This year they celebrated their 30th anniversary, which coincided with Oulu being crowned the European Capital of Culture. To celebrate, the city where the final is hosted constructed a huge stage across the river Oulujoki and staged a three-day festival that played to 20,000 people in the city itself, with a further 50,000 watching online, for a total of 70,000 viewers.

Air Guitar is scored using a figure skating system, where a panel of judges award points on a scale of 4.0 to 6.0, based on three criteria: Technical Merit, Stage Presence, and Airness. The World Final is composed of the National Champions and four Dark Horse Competitors selected from a separate competition held the night before. Competitors perform to a pre-selected track of their choice of up to one-minute, the only rule being no props, and the only instrument allowed is an air guitar. From this round, the top 8 progress to a round two final, where they must all perform an improvised routine to a track that they have not heard before the final itself.

Sam Nicoresti secured her place in the top 8, the first trans person ever to do so, and ultimately took home 4th place.

It is the first time the UK have featured in the World Championships since 2019. The UK Air Guitar competition was run this year by Piers Burnell, who said of the Championship: “Air guitar is about confidence and jumping in at the deep end. The championships are like Eurovision on steroids.”

Competitors usually perform under monikers, sometimes developed into fully fledged personas. Sam Nicoresti took part under the stage name Airlo Guv’na, and said of her character: “Airlo is the Queen of the Goblins, a dark monarch forced from her underground kingdom by the destruction wrought by humans on the world above. She wields a six-neck air guitar called The Prismatic Hexad, which is one of the legendary guitars of A’ir, an ancient kingdom of advanced technology whose people lived in a state of raised consciousness and peace.