CHECK OUT OUR AMAZING SPONSORS
The Contest
The Big Break Contest challenges original unsigned musicians to embody “the total package” for the opportunity to win professional-grade prizes at no cost to the artist. The objective is for each participant to make a new homemade music video for one of their original songs without any paid help. Once each video is received and made public by The Big Break Contest, they must engage with fans to collect enough votes to advance to our live festival-style battle round. A select number of semi-finalists will perform in front of a panel of industry-professional judges. Between the audience’s reaction, the judge’s scoring, and the public’s additional votes during the show, 3 finalists will proceed. The champion of our final round will receive a professionally-produced music video, audio track, photo shoot, record and distribution deals, and more. Driving this contest is a team of passionate volunteers hoping to offer insight, content, exposure, and community to a group of growing talents.
The Podcast
Beyond the Break podcast aims to elevate independent artists by welcoming a wide variety of industry professionals to share real stories of their experience in the entertainment business and tips on how to succeed. Performers, producers, promoters, and more are invited to give insight to anyone looking to further their independent journey in the music & entertainment world. Our episodes highlight important, perhaps unconsidered, aspects of each side to the industry with gritty honesty and high-quality perspective. Guests of ours have created presences and businesses from the ground up, amassing successful recognitions and support, and we hope to add to the toolkit of our listeners so they may do the same. We also include a segment of upcoming live shows featuring original artists in Northeastern Pennsylvania as a way to boost visibility and support for original music, and to offer an easy-to-find list of these events for the public.
The Break Room
The Big Break invites independent artists to perform a stripped-style music session for our series in the BREAK ROOM. We advocate for original artistry as a focal point of everything we do, so creating a series that asks our performers to change things up and give us different versions of their original songs only seems right! Performances are held in an intimate setting with a live audience of just a select few listeners, allowing the artists to showcase a fresh unique type of playing. We hope to see this as a positive challenge to our guests to expand their comfort zones, as well as offer them professionally-captured and produced audio and video media to use for their promotion. As of Season four, contestants of The Big Break Contest have the chance to win a spot to perform their own session in the BREAK ROOM.
What is The Big Break
The Big Break is a growing venture that aims to support independent artists with experience, connections, insight, and most notably professional-quality content they can use to grow and promote themselves as full package musicians at no cost to the artist. The Big Break is completely volunteer run, and was launched as a battle-of-the-bands style competition during 2012 in Colorado. In 2021 the venture was brought back to life with a second season of The Big Break Contest in Pennsylvania where it is currently based, and now continuing into Season 4 during 2023. In 2022 The Big Break launched a podcast, Beyond The Break, to share perspective and guidance of industry professionals for the success of those seeking independent success in music entertainment. The Big Break also created a video series of stripped performances during Season 3 of The Contest called “in the BREAK ROOM.” This asks participating artists to play intimate versions of their original songs, challenging their creativity further and offering professional media for their promotion. All aspects of The Big Break seek to support one common mission: SUPPORT INDEPENDENT ARTISTS!