The Saskatchewan Country Music Association has decided to host the annual Saskatchewan Country Music Awards this spring despite the many coronavirus pandemic cancellations — because they’re taking their awards show virtual.
The SCMA will be airing the Virtual Awards Show on May 16, in partnership with Access TV who will put together the video version of the usual show.
Access Communications was originally meant to film the live awards show on April 17-19 to broadcast on their channel, but the limitations on gatherings and other services means that the show will instead be a compiled video.
“Access has a piece of software that allows all the participants in the award show to call in at a certain time, and Access will record all the presentations and acceptance speeches, and they will produce essentially an awards video,” said SCMA president Wes LaBrash.
The Virtual Awards Show will air on Access7 cable at 8 p.m., and will also be available to watch online through a link on the SCMA website.
The new format will still feature everything people love about the awards: the presentation of each award to the winning Saskatchewan artist or group, the acceptance speeches from the winners, and performances from artists to showcase their music.
“We not only recognize the best of the best every year in Saskatchewan Country Music, but we also try to present opportunities for showcases, and the virtual awards show allows us to still do those things.
The artists who will be performing in the show have yet to be announced, but LaBrash said to stay tuned for further details in the coming weeks.
Although the virtual awards will still honour the talent and accomplishments of Saskatchewan artists, LaBrash did express some disappointment that the behind-the-scenes shows and workshops that usually fill out the awards weekend won’t be happening.
“It's a whole weekend affair, when we do [the awards] usually,” said LaBrash. “But we're thinking we might be able to do some of those later in the year.”
Performers and nominees are excited to have the awards going forward in this way, said LaBrash, especially thanks to the support of the event’s many sponsors.
“Everyone's very understanding. Of course we'd all love to come together, and have three days of music and awards and getting to see each other, but these are challenging times,” said LaBrash. “Everyone is getting creative and they appreciate that we're still going through a lot of effort and some expense to try and have an awards show.”
LaBrash hopes that the new virtual format will do its part in celebrating Saskatchewan musicians.
“Stay tuned, [and] it would be awesome if we could make this the best-attended award show ever because no one has to travel to Regina,” joked LaBrash.
The list of 2020 nominees can be found on the SCMA website here, and the streaming link for the awards show will be released on the SCMA website and social media in the next few weeks.
