Music Managers Awards 2014
/By Poppy Tohill
The past 12 months have been phenomenal for New Zealand Music and as great it is to praise the artists, it is also important that all the hard work, passion and dedication that exists behind the scenes throughout our music industry is also recognised and praised.
The Music Manager Awards held last night at Auckland's Tuning Fork was an event which did just that, seeing around 150 industry guests attend the celebrations on the preceding year's successes.
Presenter Anika Moa, was certainly the hostess with the mostess, often stealing the lime light with numerous swear words and humourous stories under her belt to keep the audience entertained throughout the nights ceremony.
The award ceremony began with a first, as MMF awarded the Industry Champions award to two organisations, with Recorded Music NZ and NZ On Air both winning the prize in recognition of their pure dedication and support of the New Zealand Music Industry.
Formally recognising a member who has utilised her many resources available to them and has shown great promise, MMF also awarded Anna Hawkins a self-managed artist whose successes include releasing her debut album and securing support for the recent Paul Potts tour, with the Mentoring Success Story Award.
As well as identifying the managers and organisations, this event also takes the time to recognise and praise the great venues that are behind so many tours, gigs and music performances, with the Leigh Sawmill taking out Best Small Venue for the third year in a row and Auckland's Powerstation winning the Best Large Venuefor the second year running.
With great consistent speeches from humbled winners, Teresa Patterson went on to win the award for Best Independent Tour for her success of putting together the Six60 March/April NZ tour in 2013 and I Am Giant 'Wire Reality' single release tour in Jan/Feb 2014, which saw the bands play to a combined audience number of over 13,000 across both tours.
In a new category this year, Dean Lawton won Breakthrough Manager of the Year, recognising his outstanding work growing his profile of his band, Sons Of Zion. While, the Self-Managed Artist of the Yearwas won by Daniel McBride for self-managing his act Sheep, Dog & Wolf. Making some fantastic headway as both an artist and manager throughout 2013 with the release of his critically acclaimed debut album‘Egospect' and touring both nationally and internationally, performing at major European festivals includingIncubate, Reeperbahn and Into the Great Wide Open.
Last but not least, the well-respected Scott MacLachlan deservedly won the prestigious Manager Of The Year award for his work with his artists Lorde and Sol3 Mio, who have both reached phenomenal levels of success both locally and internationally over the preceding year. McLachlan not surprisingly and also very well deserved, took out the International Achievement Award again for his growing work with artists Lorde and Sol3 Mio in the American and European markers, reaching unprecedented global recognition for both.
A great night was seemingly had by all, with numerous well deserved winners humbly walking away with the praise and recognition they deserve for all the hard work they have put into helping make the past year an exceptional one for New Zealand music.
Well done to all the winners and those who were also nominated. We hope New Zealand music continues to grow and thrive both locally and internationally in the years to come.