Alberta’s Country Music Artists Converge on Red Deer in Full Force

The Alberta Country Music Awards show weekend kicked off Saturday afternoon in Red Deer Alberta.   It’s a sold out even after they were permitted more seating by the fire marshall and the largest expected attendance in the show’s history!

For those that arrived early, the day kicked off with highly educational Roundtable Session. Attendees were given the opportunity to spend 20 minutes at each of the tables with the ability to ask any question or just sit back, take notes, and soak in all the knowledge being disemminated.

Some of the topics featured were “The Legal Side of Music”, “Effective Booking Strategies” (which had people standing around for each round because the chairs quickly filled, “The Realities of Radio”, and “Build Your Brand”

 

The featured session was the “Indie Artist Management” session with artist Dan Davidson and his manager and Vice-President of Invictus Entertainment, Louis O’Reilly. The Q&A structured session gave the audience some very powerful information that some may not have wanted to hear, but all needed to.  Everything from work ethic to finances to career devoplment, skills development, collaboration, and branding … just to name a few of the topics.

 

Last event up before the dinner break was the songwriter’s session, lead by Bobby Wills. Among the artists performing was a well balanced line up of male & female artists across 2 rounds were: Chrystal McGrath, Hannah Gazso, Spenser Stevens, Michaela Sheedy, and James Murdoch

 

The Kickoff party followed the dinner break and, of course, had more music from along with a few industry awards.  Taking home some trophies a little earlier than everyone else were:

• Radio Station of the Year – Sun Country 99.7 in High River
• Country Venue of the Year – Cook County Saloon in Edmonton
• Industry Person of the Year – the late Larry Maywell – received posthumously by his daughter
• Talent Buyer of the Year – Sakamoto Agency

 

 

Once all the formalities of the evening were done, Daniel Langois and Mariya Stokes hosted an open mice & jam session … essentially everyone that wasn’t scheduled to perform at some point in the evening could put their name into a water jug and they would be randomly drawn to perform one song. Another jug was reserved for those that were scheduled to perform but wanted to hop on stage anyway.

A surprise artist (for the audience) popping up on stage was Juno award winning Clayton Bellamy towards the end of the night.  He not only made sure to turn the open mic into a concert by getting everyone up out of their seats and crowding the stage, but he dragged up his longtime friend and former bandmate Dan Davidson to join in on the fun in “performing songs we don’t know well and haven’t practiced” … I don’t think anyone noticed … they were all too busy having fun!