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ESNS: European Festival Awards & MME Award Winners
ESNS is in full swing in Gronginen, Netherlands, and the winners of two annual award nights happening during the conference and festival have been revealed.
European Festival Award Winners
As is tradition, ESNS kicked off Wednesday, Jan. 18, with the European Festival Awards. Festivals participated from over 30 countries, and the public cast 300,000 single votes to find this year’s nominees and winners.
This resulted in 124 shortlisted nominees in 15 distinct categories, not counting the Lifetime Achievement Award, which went to the team of Roskilde Festival, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2022.
See: Roskilde Festival Team Awarded For Lifetime Achievement
All winners below:
The Take a Stand Award
Presented by: Take A Stand
Atlas Festival & Music Saves UA (Ukraine)
Best New Festival
Presented by: eps
Superbloom (Germany)
The Impossible without Youth Award
Presented by: YOUROPE & EFA (European Festivals Association) in connection with 3F – Future-Fit Festivals
Roskilde Festival (Denmark)
Best Indoor Festival
Iceland Airwaves (Iceland)
Line-Up of the Year
Presented by: IQ Magazine
Hellfest (France)
The Health & Safety Innovation Award
Presented by: YES Group
Watt en Schlick Fest (Germany)
Agent of the Year
Josh Javor (X-Ray Touring)
Best Small Festival
Roadburn (The Netherlands)
Newcomer of the Year
Presented by: ESNS
Fred Again (United Kingdom)
The Brand Activation Award
Presented by: EMAC
Wacken Open Air (Germany) & Krombacher
Best Medium-Sized Festival
Best Kept Secret (The Netherlands)
The Green Operations Award
Presented by: Go Group
Rock Werchter (Belgium)
Best Major Festival
Presented by: See Tickets
Roskilde Festival (Denmark)
The Award for Excellence & Passion
Holger Jan Schmidt
Promoter of the Year
Mojo (The Netherlands)
The Lifetime Achievement Award
Roskilde Festival (Denmark)
A Look At ESNS 2023: ‘Everything Has A Question Mark Now’
Music Moves Europe Awards
The second night of ESNS featured the second award ceremony, organized by ESNS and Reeperbahn Festival, supported by Liveurope, Yourope, Live DMA, IMPALA, Digital Music Europe, ICMP-CIEM, International Music Managers Forum (IMMF) and European Music Exporters Exchange (EMEE), with co-funding from the EU’s Creative Europe program.
This year’s winners, which were chosen out of 15 nominees by a jury of industry pros. They are Schmyt (Germany), July Jones (Slovenia), Oska (Austria), Kids Return (France), and Queralt Lahoz (Spain). The prestigious Grand Jury Prize was awarded to Sans Soucis (Italy) and the Public Choice award was won by Jerry Heil (Ukraine).
The five Music Moves Europe Award winners will receive €10,000 each. The winner of the Grand Jury Award will receive €10,000 and a green touring voucher worth €5,000. The winner of the Public Choice Award will receive €5,000, and a Deezer session. All fifteen nominees were invited for an education program, where they’ll learn some best practices in the music industry to strengthen their careers.
All 15 nominees performed at ESNS. Previous MME Award winners also performing in Groningen this year include Blanks (NL), Francis of Delirium (LU) and Alina Pash (UA). Other past winners of the award include Rosalía, Dua Lipa, Stromae, Hozier, Meskerem Mees, Pale Waves, and Christine and the Queens.
The jury of the 2023 Music Moves Europe Awards consisted of Jacqueline Baghdasaryan, the singer of Armenian artist Ladaniva who won the MME Public Choice Award last year, Cindy Castillo (MadCool festival), Gemma Bradley (BBC radio), Bryan Johnson (Spotify) and Kevin Cole (KEXP).