It’s been two weeks since the inaugural Music Cities Awards’ Ceremony, and we’re still buzzing with excitement.
When we first envisioned this initiative, our aim was to create a global competition designed to acknowledge and reward the most outstanding applications of music in cities and towns around the world. The Music Cities Awards turned out to be so much more.
With 250+ registered attendees from 115+ cities in 39 countries, the MCA Ceremony was a truly global celebration of music and its incredible power to shape our cities for the better.
Here’s what we’ve learned from our first-ever Music Cities Awards:
Children’s mental and emotional well being can be improved with music, arts and mindfulness.
Music can improve young adults’ lives by promoting collective practice, social inclusion, rights and cultural diversity.
Trucks can serve as moving stages and provide musicians with the opportunity to perform when traditional venues are shut.
A year-round live music offer can be a successful strategy to drive tourists to destinations.
Music and sustainability go hand in hand: quality education, gender equality, good health & wellbeing, reduced inequalities are goals the global music industry can both help achieve, and benefit from.
Businesses and creatives equally contribute to making our nights vibrant and cooperation can maximise their impact.
Music venues can be harmoniously blended into the urban landscape.
Music offices can be volunteer-led and have a DIY approach.
We’ve also realised that:
Hosting a virtual event is a tough but incredibly rewarding job. We had fun making time zones meet (speakers with as much as a 16 hour difference joined the same webinar!) and we’re grateful we got to share this event with speakers and attendees from 6 continents.
The world is full of creative, resourceful and hard-working people, determined to change our world for the better. There’s so many great projects we still haven’t heard of and that’s why we can’t wait to announce the next edition of Music Cities Awards in January 2021.
Head here to learn more about our 2020 Jury and Winners, and sign up to our Music Cities Community to rewatch the webinars and relive the best moments: the recordings of all 9 panels will be released on 2 November 2020.
Finally, a special thank you to our 2020 partner Visit Macon, our Jurors and all those who applied and watched.