The Music Victoria Awards will not be going ahead in 2025, organisers have announced today.
In a statement, Music Victoria noted that the decision to do so has occurred after “careful reflection, consultation, valuable feedback and learnings over the last 18 months.”
“The organisation believes this is the right time and opportunity for Music Victoria to reassess and reimagine the Music Victoria Awards, ensuring they are reflective of and aligned with Victoria’s diverse music community while operating in a financially sustainable manner,” the statement added.
“Music Victoria remains deeply committed to its mission of providing a valuable platform for artists and industry and looks forward to engaging with stakeholders – working together to uncover new ways to celebrate and support Victorian music meaningfully.”
“This short-term action gives us the opportunity to set up the Music Victoria Awards for a robust and sustainable long-term future,” CEO Fiona Duncan said in a statement about the 2025 event.
“We need to take one step back to allow leaps forward. We look forward to collaborating closely with our community to shape this next chapter to celebrate the depths of talent we have in Victoria,” she added. “We appreciate your understanding and continued support as we evolve through these changes.”
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Notably, the decision to suspend the awards comes just a few months after the event was mired in controversy thanks to an occurrence of voter fraud.
While the initial awards were handed out in Federation Square on October 24th, a month later on November 27th, Music Victoria announced that most of the public-voted awards had been impacted by “unusual activity within the third-party voting system.”
“Through internal investigations, including liaison with the third-party voting system Award Force, cyber security experts and legal advice, it has been found that targeted action by an unknown assailant/s has resulted in thousands of misregistered votes being falsely attributed to nominees, resulting in a change to the recipients of five of the six publicly voted categories,” a statement from Music Victoria read at the time.
As a result, new winners were announced, and Music Victoria stated that time would be set aside in the 2025 ceremony to honour the victors who were unable to be recognised in 2024. It is unclear whether this may now extend to a prospective 2026 event.
The Music Victoria Awards have been handed out annually since 2006, having initially begun as a means to honour the 21st anniversary of The Age’s EG Guide.
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its
arts funding and advisory body
