Canada’s Biggest Night In Music: Behind The Production Of The Juno Awards At TD Coliseum

Hamilton, Ontario’s four-month-old TD Coliseum is a proverbial oyster, a building of possibilities, shiny and new, for Juno Awards showrunner Lindsay Cox, co-chief content officer and executive vice-president of Toronto’s Insight Productions, which has produced Canada’s preeminent music awards show since 1989 and will this weekend, for the Junos’ 55^th year, on March 29. 

Six of those times were in the existing 40-year-old building — 1995-1997, 1999 and 2001, when it was Copps Coliseum, and, again, in 2015, as FirstOntario Centre — but that was before new owners Oak View Group led a CAD$300 million gut-to-the-studs renovation that transformed every inch of the arena’s interior  —  acoustics to sightlines, adding a new concourse and concessions spaces, premium suites, artist compound and multiple clubs.

This Sunday, viewers all over the world will get to see much of TD Coliseum bowl over the two-hour live broadcast and stream, starting at 8 p.m. ET on CBC-TV, and its various online platforms, and globally on CBCMusic.ca/junos and CBC Music’s YouTube page.

Actor, comedian and musician Mae Martin (Netflix’ Wayward) is hosting; Nelly Furtado will be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame; Joni Mitchell, a 1981 inductee, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, and the performance-packed show will include The Beaches, Arkells, Daniel Caesar, Sarah McLachlan, Allison Russell and Alessia Cara.

It’s not only a spectacular new canvas for Insight to put on the “Canada’s biggest night in music,” as the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (CARAS) has long tagged it, but a veritable worldwide infomercial for OVG Canada to show off the 18,000-capacity TD Coliseum, located in downtown Hamilton, about an hour west of Toronto.

Cox is an award-winning EP, who has developed and produced more than 50 titles and hundreds of hours of content for all North American broadcasters, including taking the ice-skating reality series Battle of the Blades into FirstOntario Centre in 2019. 

Of TD Coliseum, she says, “What we found from the event perspective — because you’re seeing it on screen, which translates to the concert audience but in a different way — is that the gorgeous look they have in the bowl with the black matte seats and the stairs and the railings, and all of the things they’ve done with the suites, has made it a really great space to shoot in.”

Insight’s line producer, Tracy Galvin, provided Pollstar some details about this year’s production setup: 225 production crew, including specialists from seven provinces and over 100 local to the Hamilton area; two television mobile studio trucks (main and support) with 12 cameras; and two audio mobile recording studio trucks who alternate mixing the performance songs live. 

In addition to the unique first-of-its-kind floor-level suites, and a backstage area so homey that artists might never want to leave, the new state-of-the-art arena includes a new rigging grid that can hold 250,000 pounds.  “Anything that can go into any other venue in North America can go into Hamilton now, too,” says Nick DeLuco, TD Coliseum’s general manager and senior vice president.

Says Cox: “That’s a real advantage, when you go into a venue and you create your rig, and then you have to wait to find out from the engineer if they’ll stamp it.” Now, it’s all but assured. 

Cox has been working with DeLuco and his team across all aspects of the event, she says, along with persons Céline Séguin who joined OVG last June as assistant GM and VP, events after five years with CARAS as VP, business affairs; and Rachel Down, director of live events. 

“We’ve been super impressed they’ve been giving us access to the building,” Cox says. “Every couple of weeks [our team] goes in for a day and they let them set up shop and we work there. It’s been super advantageous to really know the venue.

“The other thing is the dressing rooms in the backstage are so beautiful. We enticed a really special artist to come to the show this week and when we did the walkthrough with management, they said,  ‘This is amazing,’” Cox says, adding, “As much as we know it’s a great facility, we know that people will be really well taken care of backstage, which is a huge component when you’re doing awards show. There’s a lot of dress rehearsals, having to wait around, go to a red carpet, come back, get ready for show. It’s not just the part we all see on screen.”

The Insight team has been working all week on the stage production. The Toronto Rock lacrosse team had a game on Friday, then pre-rig was Sunday (the week before the broadcast), load-in was Monday, more trucks arrived Tuesday, and even more Wednesday.  

“We’re out Monday so Cardi B can come in Tuesday,” says Cox. 

“It’s going to be completely different than past Junos, anything that people have seen in Hamilton before,”adds DeLuco. “We’re super excited to welcome the music community and everybody in Canada to Hamilton and see what we’ve done here.”

For the next few days, Hamilton is the happening city in Canada for music. CARAS created Juno Week in the early 2000s, which includes various branded events, including staples JunoFest and Songwriters Circle. Hamilton’s host hotels are sold out, smaller ones have jacked their prices, and some people, even nominees, are staying at the luxury Pearle in Burlington, a short drive away. 

Says DeLuco, “We want to showcase the venue. We want to showcase our city. We want to showcase downtown. And, it’s been a great collaborative effort from everybody on the Juno side and the city side to OVG and everyone that’s got a hand in this. We want to make sure we put our best foot forward for everybody in our industry and the country to come enjoy Hamilton.”

Since officially opening with Paul McCartney Nov. 22, TD Coliseum has hosted shows artists including Nine Inch Nails, MGK, Rod Stewart, TWICE and Andrea Bocelli, and post-Junos, will see Cardi B on Tuesday (March 31), Triumph (April 25), Charlie Puth (May 20), The Guess Who (June 1), Bryan Adams (Aug. 28), and Hilary Duff (Feb. 2, 2027) with lots in between, including Monster Jam, Stars on Ice, FIBA Basketball World Cup, and comedian Jimmy Carr. 

According to stats released by CARAS, Hamilton’s music industry employs 7,725 workers and is home to 541 businesses, “making it the sixth largest cluster of music businesses in Canada.”

The Juno Awards is the grand finale of Juno Week, which includes a 10-venue music crawl known as Juno Fest (March 27-28) and the Songwriters Circle at FirstOntario Concert Hall — and begins tonight with the Kick-off concert at The Music Hall.  

The awards are actually a two-part presentation, an industry-only gala dinner Saturday March 28, at the Hamilton Convention Centre — at which the majority of trophies are presented, including the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award and Humanitarian Award, and the in memoriam shown — and what is considered the main event,  Sunday’s broadcast. 

So how does one explain Hamilton to those who aren’t from the area and don’t have Hamilton on their vacation list?  Tim Potocic, Hamilton Juno Host Committee chair, owns Sonic Unyon Records and two venues, the 150-cap Mills Hardware, and the 500-cap. Bridgeworks, both part of Juno Fest, which he and his team booked. 

“If I was to explain Hamilton as an American equivalent, I’d say Pittsburgh Steel town, close to a major center with Toronto next door close to the border. Blue collar, very working-class, but also has an amazing music scene. I find that most good music scenes come out of working-class towns,” he says. “Over the last 15 years, lots of Torontonians, specifically artists, have moved to Hamilton because, again, the other analogy is Manhattan to Brooklyn. It’s oh so close but so much cheaper. It’s really created a cool vibrancy to the scene.”

Potocic was committee chair in 2015 as well, and says there are just as many venues today as there were then, some new ones to replace ones that have closed. They are every size from the 50-capacity The Bright Room to Bridgeworks, “probably the biggest club.” Then, Hamilton Place, which holds about 2,200 people. He says a mid-tiered 1,000-1,500 capacity venue doesn’t exist, but churches and other spaces can fill that need.

He says CARAS wanted just 10 venues this year for Juno Fest versus 25 when he last did it in 2015.  

“It’s a mandate,” says Potocic of CARAS. “They just want to keep it tight.” He booked about 70 acts, a 50-50 split between nominees and Hamiltonians, he says.  Wristbands are CA $80.75 all in or an individual ticket per show.

“We always are big on encouraging people to get out to the Juno Fest shows because they’re inexpensive and fun and you can bop around to all the different venues.”