Arts & culture
Gold Coast Music Awards
Launched in 2015 by the team behind the Gold Coast’s own award-winning independent media platform, Blank Street Press, the Gold Coast Music Awards have grown into a recognisable, stand-alone brand representing Gold Coast music to a national audience.
The event has sold-out every year and 2020 bringing COVID-19, saw the awards pivot to a digital format with 28,000 views. From humble beginnings, the awards have grown from being hosted in an empty warehouse in Burleigh’s industrial precinct, to see organisers close the main street of Surfers Paradise, build a festival sized stage at the end of Cavill Mall and celebrate the successes of local musicians with a ticketed awards ceremony in a spectacular marquee on the beach.
11,000 people attended in the year that Amy Shark headlined (2017) and other years saw up to 8,000 people come along for the free live music.
The Gold Coast Music Awards are also much more than just a kick-ass event. The Awards are the home of Gold Coast music and the culmination of an annual program of activities developed to build a thriving and resilient, live, original music scene on the Gold Coast.
At the heart of the Gold Coast Music Awards is recognition of the value of artists, and the ecosystem that supports them, and the important contribution they make to our society and our own quality of life.
Fun Facts:
- In 2016 Amy Shark walked the red carpet at the Gold Coast Music Awards as a finalist for Break out Artist of the Year and Song of the Year (for Golden Fleece) and didn’t win either awards. Very shortly afterwards, Amy went on to achieve global success through the release of Adore and subsequent Triple J hottest 100 fame, coming at number two for the very same song. Despite global success Amy has continued nominating for the awards and has most notably been crowned Artist of the Year in 2017, 2018 and 2019 resulting in her then being inducted into the Gold Coast Music Awards hall of fame.
- In 2018 Gold Coast DJ Brooklyn already had a massive international following but had never been successful when pitching her story to mainstream media on the Gold Coast. Once announced as a finalist for the GCMAs alongside Amy Shark, doors suddenly opened to her and she enjoyed a significant feature article in Newcorps Gold Coast Bulletin, who now continue to follow her career success.
- We continue to receive high calibre nominations for the awards from musicians who are already achieving national and international success, some of these over the years have included: Casey Barnes, Tijuana Cartel, PACES, Busby Marou, Hussy Hicks, Hollow Coves and Amy Shark.
- Casey Barnes was awarded the People’s Choice award in the first year of the awards (2015) and has been a finalist for the Awards every year without taking home another win, until in 2020 he was announced during the COVID-19 adapted virtual awards presentation as Artist of the Year and was congratulated by Michael Chugg of Chugg Music, who he’d just signed with the year before.
