Deadline: 20-Apr-24
Applications are now open for the Music Cities Awards designed to acknowledge and reward the most outstanding applications of music for economic, social, environmental, and cultural development in cities and places all around the world.
Since its launch in 2020, the MCA’s have become a global showcase of the state of the art of projects using music to make cities better and a source of inspiration for those music advocates looking to create a positive impact in their communities.
The Award Ceremony for the 2024 edition will take place on December 7th, on the opening day of the Riyadh Music Cities Convention, to be held in Saudi Arabia.
Award Categories
- Category 1: Best Global Music City
- Aim: To celebrate the city or town that has best integrated music into as many aspects of its development as possible.
- Category 2: Best Initiative to Support Diversity & Inclusion in Music
- Aim: To recognise the best initiatives helping to improve the diversity of music ecosystems
- Category 3: Best Initiative to Support Music Education & Career Development
- Aim: To recognise the best initiatives that provide music education, or that use music to support career development
- Category 4: Best Music Tourism Initiative
- Aim: To celebrate the most innovative and successful projects and initiatives in the field of music tourism
- Category 5: Best Initiative Using Music to Improve Health & Wellbeing
- Aim: To showcase the best projects that use music to improve people’s mental or physical health and wellbeing
- Category 6: Best Initiative Using Music to Support Environmental Sustainability
- Aim: To celebrate the most innovative and successful initiatives in the field of music & sustainability
- Category 7: Best Initiative Using Music for Economic, Social or Community Development
- Aim: To showcase the best initiatives that use music and that have proved or are proving to be successful at stimulating economic, social or community development in cities
- Category 8: Best Night-Time Economy Initiative
- Aim: This award recognises the most exceptional night-time economy initiative or project, that positively impacts the lives of those working in or enjoying music at night.
- Category 9: Best Use of Music in Real Estate or City Planning
- Aim: This category aims to identify the best property development, real estate or city planning project that includes music as a core element.
- Category 10: Best Organisation or Individual Supporting Music in their City
- Aim: The winning organisation or individual will be able to show a significant positive impact that they have had on their local music ecosystem.
- Category 11: Best Digital Innovation to Support Musicians or Music in Cities
- Aim: To showcase a leading innovation that is positively impacting the lives of musicians or supporting music in cities.
Award Information
- Recognition:
- The Music Cities Awards is a recognition that gives prestige and validates the work done by organisations using music to improve their communities. Winning a Music Cities Awards will help raise the profile of applying organisations and improve the awareness about the impact of their work.
- The prestige of the award comes from the expertise of the Jury, the trajectory of the hosting organisation and the reputation of past years’ winners.
- The Jury is a diverse mix of specialists working at the forefront of different music cities related fields from all around the world.
- The hosting organisation is Music Cities Events, the leading company in producing conferences related to music cities topics.
- Physical award:
- The Music Cities Award is produced and designed by Midton in the UK. The statue is made of sustainably sourced timber and screenprint ink which does not contain ozone-depleting chemicals. For each award manufactured a tree will be planted as part of the manufacturer’s collaboration with the “Trees for Life” and “One Tree Planted” programmes.
- Music Cities Events speaker pipeline:
- Music Cities Events’ conferences are all about gathering people to share their experiences and lessons from using music to create a positive impact in their communities. Winning a Music Cities Awards will position your organisation at the frontline of the pool of projects that they consider every year for programming the events.
Eligibility Criteria
- Category 1: Best Global Music City
- Applications can be submitted by mayors’ offices, city councils, city-led music organisations, city music or cultural departments and government agencies on behalf of the city as a whole.
- Initiatives or projects highlighted should have been active in 2023 and/or 2024.
- Category 2: Best Initiative to Support Diversity & Inclusion in Music
- Anyone can apply with a relevant initiative.
- The initiative should have been active in 2023 and/or 2024.
- Eligible initiatives could include; improving the diversity balance in music, creating safe music spaces for all, using music to bring communities together, advocacy campaigns, supportive policies and more.
- Category 3: Best Initiative to Support Music Education & Career Development
- Anyone can apply with a relevant initiative.
- The initiative should have been active in 2023 and/or 2024.
- Eligible initiatives could include; directly educating underserved communities on how to play musical instruments, using music as a tool to help showcase unknown career paths, supporting a city’s music business professionals by providing networking opportunities with global leaders, and more.
- Category 4: Best Music Tourism Initiative
- Anyone can apply with a relevant initiative.
- The project or initiative should have been active in 2023 and/or 2024.
- Eligible projects could include; tourism boards that have used local musicians to promote their destination, festivals that can show their economic and social impact on their local community, tour operators that have developed innovative music tours, new music attractions etc.
- Category 5: Best Initiative Using Music to Improve Health & Wellbeing
- Anyone can apply with a relevant initiative.
- The project or initiative should have been active in 2023 and/or 2024.
- Eligible initiatives include but are not limited to; using music to improve the lives of people suffering from illnesses, using music as a tool to increase public health awareness, creating free-to-access community dance classes and more.
- Category 6: Best Initiative Using Music to Support Environmental Sustainability
- Anyone can apply with a relevant initiative.
- The project or initiative should have been active in 2023 and/or 2024.
- Eligible initiatives include but are not limited to; projects using music to raise awareness of how people can contribute to making the world more sustainable, solutions and innovations to make the music industry more sustainable, providing sustainability-focused grants and funding schemes for music organisations, implementing new initiatives to reduce waste at music events.
- Category 7: Best Initiative Using Music for Economic, Social or Community Development
- Anyone can apply with a relevant initiative.
- The project or initiative should have been active in 2023 and/or 2024.
- Eligible initiatives include, but are not limited to projects that use music; to directly improve a city’s economic growth, to improve social cohesion, to improve the lives of citizens, and more.
- Category 8: Best Night-Time Economy Initiative
- Anyone can apply with a relevant initiative.
- The project or initiative should have been active in 2023 and/or 2024.
- Eligible initiatives include projects that have a direct connection to music and e.g.; increase the safety of those enjoying evening events, improve the event offering at night, stimulate economic growth, improve public health at night, protect night-time infrastructure, improve transport at night and more.
- Category 9: Best Use of Music in Real Estate or City Planning
- Anyone can apply with a relevant initiative.
- They would like to hear about projects/initiatives that have been active in 2023 and or 2024.
- Eligible initiatives include, but are not limited to projects that have used music; to improve the built environment, to improve access to music infrastructure, that use music as a tool for placemaking, that provide affordable housing for musicians, etc.
- Category 10: Best Organisation or Individual Supporting Music in their City
- Anyone can apply on behalf of themselves or another person or organisation
- They would like to hear about people or organisations that have had a significant impact on their local music ecosystem in 2023 and or 2024.
- Category 11: Best Digital Innovation to Support Musicians or Music in Cities
- Anyone can apply with a relevant initiative.
- They would like to hear about projects/initiatives that have been active in 2023 and or 2024.
- Eligible initiatives include, but are not limited to digital innovations that have; improved the ability of musicians to make money, improved access to key information, improved how live music is showcased in a city, improved the lives of musicians when touring, simplified the process to organise music events in cities etc.
For more information, visit Music Cities Events.
