ARIA Awards will go ahead despite the coronavirus pandemic

ARIA has announced the 2020 ARIA Awards will return on Wednesday, November 25.

The annual event will be held at The Star Event Centre in Sydney, but there will be no physical audience and performances will be showcased online.

The ceremony will be presented by Brooke Boney and will be broadcast live on Nine as well as YouTube.

The nominees will be revealed in October and the Fine Arts and Artisan ARIA Awards will also be awarded on the same day.

ARIA Chief Executive Dan Rosen said: ‘There is no doubt that our music industry has been impacted, first by the bushfires and then by the COVID-19 crisis, and ARIA has been working hard to ensure we are supporting Australia’s artists in their time of need.’

‘We want to celebrate the resilience, strength, and camaraderie that our artists and the music industry have shown throughout 2020, and celebrate the successes of the Australian music industry, both locally and on the global stage.’

‘Australia’s music industry is a passionate and determined community, and we can’t wait to showcase that on this night of nights,’ he said.

Last year, the ARIA Awards were also held at Sydney’s The Star Event Centre and the event aired on Channel Nine.

The announcement comes after the Logie Awards were cancelled earlier this year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

In April, Fiona Connolly, Group Publisher at Bauer Media, announced that the official ceremony, which was slated for June, had been called off.

Instead, showrunners plan to hold a ‘bigger’ and more ‘epic’ event in 2021.

The Helpmann Awards were also cancelled and the future of the AACTA Awards is still undecided.