AIR Introduces New Award Category As Nominations For 2025 Awards Open

Nominations have opened for this year’s Australian Independent Record Awards (better known as the AIR Awards).

AIR Members can nominate an “Australian service provider” who worked on an eligible release. The engineer for the nominated release will receive the award. To find out if you qualify for AIR membership, visit the awards website.

Nominations for all 2025 AIR Awards categories are now open to all AIR members. The nomination window will close at midnight on Monday, 10 March. Members should receive a link via email to nominate eligible releases.

In addition to the opening of the nominations, it’s been announced that this year’s award ceremony has moved to a new venue, and a new award category has been introduced.

The 2025 AIR Awards will be held on Thursday, 31 July, at the Adelaide Town Hall (last year’s event was held at Queens Theatre, moving from Freemasons Hall). Early bird tickets for this year’s event will be available in March.

The AIR Awards will be held concurrently with the Indie-Con Australia Conference, which is set to be held at the Mercury Cinema from 30 July to 1 August. This year, AIR will host A2IM’s Indie Week Australian Edition, marking the first time A2IM has held its conference outside of the US.

This year, a new award celebrating the Australian music industry’s independent success has been added: Independent Mix, Studio, or Mastering Engineer of the Year.

According to a press release, the new award will recognise the efforts of an “Australian-based mix, studio, or mastering engineer” who worked on an eligible AIR member’s single, EP or album released during the eligibility period of 1 January to 31 December 2024.

The new award is the latest in AIR’s recent expansion of industry award categories, following last year’s Producer and Music Video of the Year awards.