Americana Music Association
Community Agreement & Showcase Selection
Community Agreement
The Americana Music Association strives to create music events that celebrate and shine a light on our creative community and the industry that surrounds it.
Each year, AMERICANAFEST brings together a variety of voices to discover, enjoy and share. We ask all participants and staff to show common courtesy to one another at panel discussions, special events, official showcases, and online. We want the festival to be inclusive, enjoyable, and safe.
To provide this environment, we ask our attendees to respect each other’s personal boundaries in the conference hall, music venues, and other locations associated with AMERICANAFEST. We request that all participants abstain from disrupting showcases, panel discussions or special events with hateful speech or actions. The Americana Music Association supports an exchange of ideas at all levels and we encourage our attendees to be considerate of other people’s points of view.
Showcase Selection Process
Coming out of the pandemic, AMERICANAFEST opted to curate a smaller event, selecting an estimated 200 artists from a very large pool of submissions. In 2022, there were more than 1,500 submissions. In 2023, there were more than 1,700 submissions. AMERICANAFEST places official showcases in 12 to 15 music venues a night, nearly taking over the city’s club scene for five days.
How do you get chosen for a showcase?
The first step is to submit through our official portal during the showcase submission period. Artists and representatives will need to enter their membership number to submit. (Need a membership? Visit our Membership page.) Submissions include a live performance video, a few details about the artist’s career, and the dates that the artist is available. The form takes 5-10 minutes to complete.
We listens to every showcase submission over a period of several weeks. Before finalizing the lineup, we send the full list of showcase submissions to an industry committee of radio, press, DSP representatives and select board members. (Note: Managers and booking agents are not part of the showcase committee to prevent a conflict of interest.)
Because our showcases take place in a variety of venues, the curation involves a strategic usage of available rooms. Artists with significant followings are often placed in the larger clubs. Up-and-coming artists may be offered showcases on smaller stages. If an artist’s music works better in a seated club, or if the artist travels with a six-piece band, these details are taken into consideration.
As we all know, Americana music is a broad term. At AMERICANAFEST, we welcome the chance to hear rising singer-songwriters, roots-rock bands, bluegrass bands, folk duos, soul singers, legacy artists, and more. Our festival producer pieces together all of these sounds to present a festival unlike any other. Some fans stay in one venue all night; others like to check out a couple different spots.
We send the offer to selected artists and then schedules the showcases. All official showcasing artists are offered a $150 honorarium for a 45-minute set. We also understand that letters of regret are difficult to receive. However, we are grateful for the opportunity to listen to all submissions and we hope that AMERICANAFEST is a meaningful event for everyone involved.