Crowning Queensland music royalty

Drumming up publicity for the state’s top musicians

QMusic engaged Aruga to lead an earned media relations campaign for the 2026 Queensland Music Awards (QMAs) as the state’s premier celebration of musical excellence marked its 20th year.

Across three campaign phases – People’s Choice voting, finalists announcement and winners reveal – Aruga delivered a comprehensive earned media strategy that resulted in consistent, high-quality coverage from first launch to well beyond the afterparty.

As part of this, we coordinated a media call in Fortitude Valley to unveil Young Franco’s Valley Walk of Fame plaque, generating significant standalone Queensland coverage in the lead-up to the event.

On awards night, we provided on-ground support at Miami Marketta on the Gold Coast. We escorted winners from the stage and facilitated media access in real time. The result was 1,036 pieces of earned coverage across print, digital, radio and major music publications nationally, a fitting soundtrack to Queensland’s biggest night in music.

Results

1,036

pieces of earned editorial coverage

3

strategically planned media announcements

15,141,755

total potential audience reach

$372,629

in advertising value equivalency

100%

positive sentiment across all coverage

Deliverables

Copywriting

Crafted three media releases across the campaign, covering People's Choice voting, finalists announcement and winners reveal.

Media Relations

Delivered a multi-phase media relations strategy targeting national and statewide print, digital, radio and music trade media.

Public Relations

Facilitated end-to-end PR campaign management including ongoing media liaison, a pre-awards media call and on-ground support.

Winning tactics

Campaign phasing

Aruga structured outreach around three major announcements which enabled us to maintain coverage momentum from voting to the awards ceremony and beyond.