ARIA announces two-stage voting for industry-voted awards

Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) today announced further changes to the ARIA Awards process commencing from the 2023 ARIA Awards later this year. 

Following the announcement of several criteria revisions, industry-voted ARIAs will now also include a two-stage voting process. 

The first stage of voting beginning in early September will involve the usual process where the ARIA Voting Academy panel of 1000 industry voters and each genre expert category panel, will be presented with the entire list of eligible entries and asked to select their first, second and third preferences.  

In late September ARIA will announce the final ARIA Awards 2023 nominees in each category from this first voting round. Stage two voting will commence on Nominations day when the voting panel will be asked to return and vote for a second time, now selecting their first, second and third preferences from the list of final nominees in each category to determine the ultimate winner of each 2023 ARIA Award. Both stages of voting will be subject to an external audit. 

The process for publicly voted ARIA Awards remains unchanged, and those categories include: 

• Song of the Year 
• Most Popular International Artist 
• Best Australian Live Act 
• Best Video 
• Telstra ARIA Music Teacher Award.   

ARIA CEO, Annabelle Herd, said: “Adding a second stage for voting is a very exciting step for us and we hope the industry agrees. It is an important evolution in the awards process that helps make sure our industry voting panel can really make certain that every one of their votes counts across each category to determine exactly who is winning each ARIA Award.  

“This is also a fantastic opportunity to ensure a greater deal of consideration is going toward who is worthy of taking out a career-defining ARIA Award, and that each of our final nominees have their work heard and celebrated accordingly. It’s just another part of our continuing effort to evolve ARIA and represent the incredible homegrown musicians we’re so lucky to have. We can’t wait to celebrate Australian music’s night of nights later in the year.”