2011 AIADAs Winners announced

JETTY ROAD, THE PRAIRIE OYSTERS and KATRINA BURGOYNE have taken home the money and the awards at the 2011 AIADAs over the weekend at Rooty Hill RSL.

JETTY ROAD took out the grand prize of $20,000 cash as winner of the 2011 AIADAs Professional Development Award, beating out other finalists Katrina Burgoyne,

Markus Meier, Pete Denahy, Rose Carleo and Tori Darke. Entries in this category were judged on not only the musical content of the tracks entered, but also on a business/marketing plan supplied by the artists in their applications.

“Each of these Finalists are to be commended for taking big steps towards turning their dreams into a livelihood.''- AIADO CEO, Donna Boyd.

Victorian band THE PRAIRIE OYSTERS continually led the tally board with the most online votes on the Total Country website in the months leading up to the Awards night, utilising the very clever tactic of taking a laptop to gigs and asking fans to vote online if they liked what they heard and saw. THE PRAIRIE OYSTERS took home $10,000 cash and the 2011 AIADAs Peoples Choice Awards.

KATRINA BURGOYNE took home $5,000 cash and the 2011 Music Video of the Year Award for her stunning music video for ‘Ghost’, produced by Duncan Toombs.

The audience was treated to just under 4 hours jam-packed with entertainment that included performances by Rose Carleo, Aleyce Simmonds, Pete Denahy, Jackie Dee, The Prairie Oysters, Tori Darke, Markus Meier, Katrina Burgoyne, Jetty Road and Tracy Killeen, along with spectacular staging and lighting effects, thanks to the crew at Rooty Hill RSL.

AIADA would like to thank Rooty Hill RSL for donating the prize money for the awards, and Britton Morrison for sponsoring the awards trophies.

The AIADAs is the annual fundraising event for the AUSTRALIAN INDEPENDENT ARTISTS DEVELOPMENT ORGANISATION (AIADO) and monies raised from the ticket sales for the night and the sale of the 2011 AIADAs Finalists CD will be used to get the new junior program GENERATION COUNTRY up and running in 2012.