A P P L Y  F O R  2 0 2 1

This year, for the first time ever, you can apply to be in the Prospect Music Award.

We will be accepting external applications from anyone within the music industry from anywhere in the world, as well as continuing our internal process, so we can discover and consider more new artists than ever before.

Whether you work in the music industry and want to nominate a band you've represented or worked with or you're a musician wanting to apply for yourself to be involved in Prospect 2021, then we want to hear from you. Please make sure you have read our terms and conditions before applying, which you can find here. 

If you're an artist or artist representative wanting to apply, please make sure you have the following pieces of materials ready to help ensure that your experience in filling in your application is as calm and organized as it possibly can be:

• A file of an unreleased song (this can also be a demo).
• Footage of you performing live.
• Screenshots confirming that you own/run your music streaming service page (Amazon Music, Spotify, etc.).
• Your rough music release schedule for 2021.

If you're a member of the music industry that isn't an artist applying for themselves, you need to prepare a reason as to why you are nominating each artist for the application process.

The Prospect Music Award has the right to cancel applications if the artist you are nomination does not fit within our criteria, which you can find in our Terms & Conditions.

Once you've done so, you can apply by clicking here.

Applications close at 23:59 on Wednesday 30th September.

Best of luck!

The Prospect Music Award team.

F A Q S

Q - What is the Prospect Music Award?
A - The Prospect Music Award is a music competition where we take lots of brand new up-and-coming artists of multiple genres, all of whom we believe are going to be the next big thing or have the potential to be massive, and pit them against each other in a competition. More information is available on the About page of our website.

Q - Who has taken part previously?
A - We have selected artists internally for the past seven years, and the entire list of the 165 previous nominees is on our About page. Our seven previous winners are: Sam Smith, Years & Years, Jack Garratt, The Amazons, Pale Waves, Airways and Arlo Parks. The full results from all seven years can be seen on the History page.

Q - How can I get in touch with you about press / media-related inquiries?
A - You can email us at prospectmusicaward@yahoo.com and one of our team will get back to you within five working days.

Q - What is the process of the Prospect Music Award? 
A - Each internal and external entry will be independently verified and the best will go through a variety of different lists (Top 250, Top 100 etc) until we get to the Top 50. The Top 50 will not be announced to the public but the artists and their managers will be contacted if they get this far. From here, the judges will listen to the artist's music and critique it. They will all meet in person to discuss which artists should go into the Top 25 and become an official nominee, discussing each artist in detail. Artists and managers will be contacted if they are in the Top 25. Those artists will be revealed publicly in December 2020 and the first round of public voting will open immediately after all 25 artists have been announced, after which, 25 will go down to 10. The public will be asked to choose ten of their favourite artists. The top two from the public vote will automatically go through to the final. The judges will meet again to rank the Top 25 from 1st place to last place. The judge's favourite (1st place) will also automatically go through to the final. The remaining seven places will be a 50/50 split between the judges and the public. The official Top 10 will be announced and the second and final round of voting will then open. The public will rank the final ten from 1st place to 10th place, with a different number of points being given to each artist in each position. The judges' results from the semi-final will carry over to the final, but with the eliminated finalists removed. The scores will once again be a 50/50 split between the judges and the public and will be officially announced in January 2021.

Q - What can the Prospect Music Award offer me?
A - The competition, first and foremost, raises awareness for new, up-and-coming artists in the music industry. We have seen artists from our 2020 competition skyrocket, with their Instagram followers going up by an average of 50% within the first five months. If you reach the Top 25, you are also permanently part of the Prospect alumni, and because of that, we can promote new music through our social media pages. 

Q - I've submitted my application/nomination but I haven't heard anything back from you. When can I expect a response?
A - Anyone who has submitted a nomination who doesn't personally work with the artist will not get an email back regardless of whether they are in a list. This is due to the volumes of applications we get and for privacy reasons. For any artist application, we may contact you to confirm any information in your application, otherwise, we will only contact you if you have made it to a significant part of the competition. If you do not hear from us by 20th November 2020, then please assume we have decided not to take your application further.

Q - Why have you decided to include an external process for the 2021 competition? 
A - Last year we considered over one thousand different artists from around the world and from a variety of different genres. We know that there are way more up-and-coming artists all around the globe, but we can't be aware of them all, no matter how much we want to be. This is why we have introduced the external process, so that artists that we aren't aware of can make themselves known to us and we can consider them for the competition.

Q - Are there any prizes for winning the Prospect Music Award?
A - The prize is the title of Prospect Music Award Champion, 2021. You will be able to use the title yourself and we actively promote the Prospect winners on our social media pages. At the moment there are no plans to add any physical or monetary prizes to the competition but never say never... 

Q - When is the Prospect Music Award 2021 happening?
A - The competition will take place over a four week period starting in December 2020 and ending in January 2021.

Q - Are there restrictions on who can take part?
A - Please see the Terms & Conditions section of the website for more information on this subject.

Q - Who are the judges?
A - The 2021 judges will be confirmed in November. You can view all of the previous judges by heading to the Judges page on our website.

Q - What are the judges looking for?
A - The judges are looking for A variety of different things, but mostly, they look at two overall factors: the two most important factors are Fame and Potential. Who already has most importantly they are looking for evidence that an artist either already has the ability to make it big within the music industry, and who has or that they have the potential to be do this. There will be a full judging criterion that A list of the criteria will be introduced for the 2021 competition, but that will be for the judges' eyes only. 

Q - Why can't I nominate an artist if I'm not in the music industry?
A - At this stage, we are looking for the opinions of music industry professionals as to who they think are going to be big in the future, and preferably in the next twelve months (Jan-Dec 2021). This is because, from their experience, they know more so than people who don't work in the industry. Having said that, there will be two public votes during the Prospect Music Award period so everyone will be able to have their say.

Q - What do I do if I have any more questions?
A - You can email us at prospectmusicaward@yahoo.com and one of our team will get back to you within five working days.