The Earls of Leicester on the IBMA Red Carpet – photo © Tara Linhardt
Thursday of IBMA week is famous for awards. There is an Industry Awards Luncheon with live shows and lifetime Distinguished Achievement Awards, and this year’s Industry awards going to graphic designers, liner notes writers, sound engineers, broadcasters, songwriters, events, and those who write about bluegrass.
Apart from that, there are still more conferences teaching all sorts of helpful info for those of us in the music industry. IBMA also realizes that folks in the music business trenches sometimes do not have health insurance, and may not be able to get to the eye doctor, or dentist, or make it to an audiologist to get custom ear plugs to protect our hearing. So those services are offered free of charge to festival attendees. There were a number of musicians that I saw taking advantage of those services. MusiCares was running the dental clinic room, complete with an on site dental x-rays and everything.
Of course a fun activity for any bluegrass musician at IBMA is trying out all the instruments in the Exhibit Room. Here is a shot of a bunch of us mandolin players trying out some mandolins made by a builder who flew in from the Czech Republic. (photo)
Also in the Exhibit Hall this year was the Rainbow Bluegrass Pride, who had lots of fun things going on, and cool folks stopping by.
BluegrassCountry had its own room down the hall near the instrument check where they were broadcasting live radio shows with rotating bands.
The evening offered plenty of showcases downtown, and also the famous IBMA big awards show (which can be seen on the IBMA Facebook page). Step one to the Awards Show is seeing the bluegrass celebrities walk the Red Carpet for their official posed photos, being taken by a line of great and fun loving photographers. 🙂
Here are just a few little peaks into the fun. There were some great dancers as well as musicians involved this year too, which was fantastic.
