About

popNRW

popNRW has been supporting outstanding bands and promising newcomers from all over North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) since 2012. As a project of the NRW Music Council (Landesmusikrat NRW), popNRW strengthens NRW’s diverse music scene and showcases its potential beyond the state and national borders. With workshops and tour support, popNRW creates sustainable structures and offers young musicians valuable support on their path to professionalism.

popNRW is funded by the NRW Ministry for Economics, Industry, Climate Protection and Energy and made possible by the NRW Ministry of Culture and Science, the Landesmusikrat NRW and the NRW KULTURsekretariat.

popNRW Prize

Together with the NRW Cultural Secretariat (NRW Kultursekretariat), the NRW Music Council (Landesmusikrat NRW) awards the annual popNRW Prize as a beacon of the regional music scene. Outstanding acts from North Rhine-Westphalia are honored in the categories „Outstanding“ and „Newcomer“. Introduced in 2012, popNRW Prize is one of the best-endowed and most prestigious awards for pop musicians (on their way to the top) in Germany. The Outstanding award comes with a prize of €10,000, while the Newcomer award is endowed with €2,500.

As a fixed component of popNRW, the prize also directs the national attention to this statewide sponsorship programme, based on an effective and sustainable network of artists, promoters, venues and pop promotion institutions. Up-and-coming musicians from NRW, that are nominated for the popNRW-prize can get support in their plans to tour and get the chance to be presented in popNRW-showcases.

Prestigious and internationally recognized award winners of recent years that popNRW has promoted include Giant Rooks, AnnenMayKantereit, Roosevelt, Amilli, Blumengarten and Mina Richman.

Export and tour support

popNRW is the music export office of North-Rhine Westfalia, Germany’s biggest federal state. Since 2012, popNRW supports local artists and festivals to strengthen the local pop music scene. Additionally, it promotes them abroad through showcase activities at relevant international festivals like The Great Escape (Brighton, UK), Reeperbahn Festival (Hamburg, GE) or Waves Festival (Vienna, AUS) or Strasbourg Music Week (Straßburg, FR). At some of these activities we also work together with the Initiative Musik and other pop-offices in Germany.

popNRW also supports tour projects of the artists nominated for the popNRW Prize.

Workshops

popNRW is also offering coaching for newcomer acts through their workshop-programm: Bands and artists can get tipps & input from professionals during the New Talent workshop-programm that popNRW is presenting every year at the c/o pop Convention in Cologne. Topics like social media, artist development, songwriting or booking as well as mental health and awareness, are presented in talks and workshops by proffessional business people for NEW TALENT. This programm is presented in cooperation with the VUT west and c/o pop Convention.