Singing News Fan Awards Moving To Dollywood

According to this press release from the Singing News this morning, the Singing News Fan Awards are leaving the National Quartet Convention, and moving to Dollywood to be held in conjunction with the SGMA Hall Of Fame Induction ceremony.  Here is a quote from the press release:

“The National Quartet Convention has been gracious in sharing their time and facilities with us for four decades,” says Jones. “We will continue to support that grand tradition of Southern Gospel music even as we look forward to our move. We will continue to have one of the largest booths at NQC as well as expanded editorial coverage, pre and post convention.”

I know that the Singing News has been trying several different things to “spice up” the Fan Awards in recent years, from changing the awards presented, to limiting the time on acceptance speeches.  None, however, present the paradigm changing scope like this move does.  However, it has always seemed to me that for such a huge event in the SG landscape, the coverage provided in the SN for the convention was a bit sparse.  I’m sure that having to try and deal with the logistics of the Fan Awards took up quite a bit of SN staffers’ time during that week.  I would imagine, as the quote above states, that not having to deal with the awards show would free up quite a bit of time that can be devoted to the convention and it’s goings on, along with the wave of personnel changes that seem to occur every year around NQC.  Still, one can only wonder at the internal forces and discussions that had to have gone on during the discussions about this move.  The Fan Awards have always been more or less the climax of the convention, and will leave a pretty big hole in the week.  It will be interesting to see what the NQC board comes up with as the flagship event of the week now.

The 2010 Singing News Fan Awards are scheduled to be held on September 29, 2010 at the DP Celebrity Theater in Dollywood.  Tickets will go on sale on March 1.  This is surely not the last we will hear of this story, I’m sure there will be more developing, especially from the NQC’s side of the equation.