Cancelled Flights, Covid-19 Won’t Stop The ECMAs From Happening In Sydney
HALIFAX — The president of the East Coast Music Association says the East Coast Music Awards will still happen in Sydney this year, despite the city’s airport losing all commercial flight service.
Last week, Air Canada said it will pull its last commercial flight from the J.A Douglas McCurdy Sydney Airport on January 11.
The move will leave Cape Breton without any commercial air connectivity, and some are wondering what that means for international events like the ECMAs, which are scheduled to take place in Sydney in May.
But Andy McLean, the CEO of the East Coast Music Association, says his team has no plans to cancel, reschedule, or relocate next year’s awards.
“This news doesn’t change our commitment to go to Sydney, not at all,” he told Huddle. “We have plans, we have strategies, we can pivot.”
When Covid-19 hit Atlantic Canada this spring, the ECMAs were one of the first large events to be scrapped.
The awards had been scheduled to take place in St. John’s this April. When organizers were forced to cancel and move online it was the first time in the association’s 32-year history the show didn’t happen in person.
“We were very disappointed we didn’t go to St. John’s… we worked three years in preparation for that,” McLean said. “It’s been a strange six- or seven-months [but] we’ve adapted, like everybody else.”
McLean said organizers learned from this year’s online show and have been planning a 2021 event that mixes a live, in-person show with a “robust” online component.
Because parts of the event are already happening online, McLean said the loss of commercial flights into Sydney won’t hurt quite as badly.
“We were pretty much resigned to the fact that we wouldn’t have a huge international component [this year],” McLean said. He added, however, that things will still be complicated by a lack of air access to Sydney.
“Getting people from Halifax to Sydney, or getting people from Toronto to Sydney, it certainly doesn’t help,” he said.
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While having more people in Sydney will create a better live show in May, McLean said it’s important to get the awards in front of as many music-industry folks as possible.
While the ECMAs exist to celebrate the work and talent of the region’s musicians, they also play a vital role in promoting (and hopefully selling) those musicians to the rest of the world.
McLean says the ECMA has a substantial export program that each year brings in industry buyers from around the world to take in the region’s talent.
This year, McLean says that will have to be done online. However, the organization’s recent digital pivot will help.
“In some ways, because of all the new relationships we’ve made, we’re actually in contact with more export agencies now around the world than we were before because of the online things we’ve been doing,” he said.
Courting international buyers aside, McLean said he and the rest of the ECMA team are simply excited to bring a live music event to Sydney in 2021, no matter what Covid-19 complications they have to overcome.
“We’re going. And we’ll do it compliant with what Health Canada says and we’ll be safe,” he said. “They really want the ECMAs in Sydney: there’s the economic impact and the music community needs to gather as well, as best it can. We really missed not getting together in St. John’s so for all kinds of reasons we’re committed to going to Sydney.”
The pandemic has changed a lot, he added, but “the only thing that won’t change is people love live music.”
Trevor Nichols is a reporter for Huddle in Halifax. Send him an e-mail with your story suggestions: [email protected].