Concert Industry Awards

The peer nominating process for the 23rd annual Pollstar Concert Industry Awards is moving forward and the list of 2011 nominees will be formally announced Nov. 10 when online voting begins.

There have been a few notable changes from past years.

We have added a new Festival of the Year category for smaller events of less than 25,000 capacity. This gives the industry a chance to honor some of the many excellent festivals that consistently get overshadowed by the larger events that dominate the Major Festival category.

The criteria for nominations for the Bill Graham Award for Promoter of the Year have been significantly changed to reflect industry changes and make it distinctly different from Talent Buyer of the Year. To be eligible for the Bill Graham Award, the nominee must be an entrepreneur with some of his or her own money directly at risk.

The Talent Buyer category will be used to honor those individuals who book shows on behalf of a company but do not have any of their own money on the line for individual shows. We recognize that many Talent Buyers are compensated annually by their contributions to a company’s bottom line, but that is very different from being in a position to dent your own wallet with each booking.

In the interest of keeping the number of categories down to a manageable number, we have discontinued the Independent Promoter and Most Creative Tour Package awards, and have consolidated the International Arena and International Theatre categories into one category for International Venue of the Year.

The awards will be presented on Friday, Feb. 3rd at Club Nokia as the concluding event of Pollstar Live! Although no program details have been announced, registrations and hotel reservations continue to stream in.

Please note that the Super Saver discount of $100 expires on Oct. 31.