The American Idol hopefuls of 2023! Join 'Idol Across America

The "Idol Across America" tour for season 21 of "American Idol" will start in August, when the process of virtual auditions will begin. The auditions for Idol back in the day were conducted in person. There was a time when the show sent buses out to big and small cities to bring singers to audition directly, in the early years of the ABC era.

There is no doubt, though, that singing shows in the age of COVID rely heavily on virtual tools to assess the performances of the singers. As the infrastructure works so well that it is unlikely that any product will ever go back to in-person auditions until the cameras are ready to roll!

Related: What score would you give to the American Idol Judges? Who judges the best singers? 

As a result of this, American Idol will also be offering an online version of "Idol Across America" in 2020, 2021, and 2022 in which fans will be able to choose a state and reserve a time slot when they can perform a live virtual audition. The states will be ordered alphabetically, beginning on August 15 with Alabama.

 After the regional categories, producers will hold a national "nationwide" day on September 14. The audition period may be extended, so keep an eye out for that.

The hopefuls who attend the producer rounds at the end of the fall will be singing in front of the judges at the end of the season. What are the judges' names? The date of the event is yet to be determined.

Be prepared for Lionel Richie, Katy Perry, and Luke Bryan to appear again for the fifth season. In addition, Ryan Seacrest will return. You can't pry the American Idol hosting gig out of his cold, dead hands. It's a challenge. The audition is open to singers born between June 2, 1993, and September 15, 2007.

Related: Ryan Seacrest's Nearly Had A Wardrobe Emergency On American Idol Finale

American Idol winners who have won previous seasons are ineligible to audition again.HunterGirl, what are you waiting for? Come down, you season 20 runner-up! There is no doubt that this rule has been made much of by fans, but the returnees tend to have finished as Hollywood round rejects, or failed to make it past the judge's round.