Melbourne’s SoundMerch today proudly announces a partnership with The Australian Music Prize (The AMP) in 2020, stepping up as the naming rights sponsor. The partnership guarantees a cash prize of $20,000 for the winner.
Australia’s most prestigious music award announced its return in 2020 for its 16th prize, last month. With COVID-19 putting many people and businesses under immense financial pressure, The AMP, whose primary source of income had been sponsorship, announced a unique opportunity to purchase t-shirts with 70% of all profit from sales going directly to the artists through prize money and marketing of the albums.
Since then, SoundMerch has generously stepped up to give back to the Australian music industry by sponsoring the prize. With COVID-19 putting a pause in live music and the tour merch that comes with that, bands have been pushing their online music merch more than ever as one of their main sources of income. This saw online merch and vinyl sales triple for Australia’s SoundMerch who has been printing and producing merch for over 10 years.
“We’ve had a great year and would like to give something back to Australian artists given most of them haven’t had a great year. Doing this through The AMP also helps promote a healthy music scene which in turn helps SoundMerch” said Tim Everist, CEO of SoundMerch.
Emerging in 2005, the Australian Music Prize has provided a mouthpiece for the best albums in Australian contemporary music, judged by esteemed peers within the Australian music industry that focuses on creative merit over mainstream popularity. A sister prize to the UK’s coveted Mercury Prize, the Australian Music Prize is Australia’s most sought-after achievement within the music community, honouring the album as an art form.
With over 50 Australian albums nominated – so far – the 16th AMP will announce its final list of 2020 Nominated Albums in December. In 2019, this list was 107 albums long out of 440 eligible albums with numbers looking similar this year. As per previous prizes, the Shortlist will be announced in early-Feb 2021 and then a select panel of the judges will meet in March to decide on and announce, a winner.
“It’s admirable of Tim to stand up to declare he’s making money from Aussie music and therefore he wants to give back and support the artists, I urge artists to work with companies like this. SoundMerch’s support means we can guarantee a cash prize of $20,000 and if our t-shirt sales continue, we may even be able to offer more funds for those artists making great albums” said Scott B. Murphy, the founder and prize director of The AMP.
Support Aussie Made Music
70% of profits will go directly to artists by way of prize money and marketing of their albums.
Pre-order it HERE.
|
|||
|
