Rare Country Awards To Launch In November

Cox Media Group’s Rare Country will soon launch its Rare Country Awards, an all-digital awards experience geared toward country music.

The official list of categories and nominees will be revealed on Nov. 15, launching the start of the voting period. Winners will be announced on Dec. 15.

“We spent a lot of time creating content fans are interested in, and listening to what our fans tell us, and we thought it would be a great opportunity to give them a chance to tell us what their favorite artist performances, and moments of the year were,” says Rare Country’s General Manager Laurissa Phillips. “That’s where the beginning of the idea started. Obviously, we are a digital company and relying on social media and sharable content to reach fans, we have a different relationship with those fans…I like to think a closer relationship.”

The awards’ eight categories will offer a mix of traditional and unique awards honors. The Rare Country Awards will also honor one artist with a special humanitarian award.

“One award category we feature is the Tour of the Year category,” Phillips says. “Really, that is not so much about an industry play, as it is what the fan experience was like at each of these tours over the summer. I think that is a really important piece of the puzzle. We hear from fans all summer long about how they enjoyed each piece of a tour, whether that is the opening act, the tailgate experience, the headliner. That’s one where we had a little bit more fun.”

As the Rare Country Awards focuses on the digital sphere, there will be no corresponding live awards show.

“We want to acknowledge that fans are consuming music, information and entertainment in completely different ways than in the past. The Rare Country Awards are designed to reach fans on the screens they prefer to spend time on (i.e., mobile, social and online).”

Beginning Nov. 15, country fans will be able to cast their votes at rarecountryawards.com.