Fans of country music in the Southern Interior will be able to get a front-row view of some of Canada’s biggest stars next year.
Kelowna has been awarded the hosting rights for next year’s Canadian Country Music Awards.
The CCMA Board has tapped Kelowna to be just the third BC city to host Country Music Week since its inception in 1977.
Tourism Kelowna CEO Lisanne Ballantyne says they’re already working on identifying their target audience for the event.
“We’ll be going after what we call the short-haul market. Those are folks, music lovers, who are going to be driving in from maybe the BC Mainland area, maybe even Alberta,” said Ballantyne. “We’re also going to be investing in the eastern market as well, because this is a televised event.”
Ballantyne says they expect the week-long event will be a significant draw from other parts of Canada, pointing to Hamilton’s hosting of the event in 2023.
“They saw 80 percent of their attendees coming from out of the region… actually travelling to Hamilton for the event,” noted Ballantyne. “We don’t know if we’ll get the same draw, because of course that’s an eastern-based market. But we know we’re going to do very well with new attendees coming outside of the region.”
The 2025 CCMA Awards will be handed out at Prospera Place in September.