Award Winners To Be Announced Live Online on July 21, 2020
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – (July 8, 2020) – Owners and administrators of AbsolutelyGospel.com, the Southern Gospel industry’s award-winning e-zine, announced this week that the site’s annual awards program will be hosted online this year due to the increasing threat of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The site will post special awards multimedia in each of its 22 awards categories and the Susan Unthank Memorial Award both on the site’s homepage as well as the site’s Facebook page on Tuesday evening, July 21, 2020 beginning at 7:00 p.m. CST.
In a letter to performers and nominees earlier this month, site owner Deon Unthank said, “[W]e felt it necessary to postpone the physical event until later because of the threat of the coronavirus. We have kept postponing it until we felt that it is probably a losing cause. Several major obstacles have led us to make the decision to present the awards via a Facebook live presentation.”
Deon continued, “The major obstacle is that we cannot find a facility that will allow us to use the sanctuary or auditorium due to fear of the virus and the costs of sterilizing the facility after using it. Another problem was asking artists who have been out of work for so long to volunteer their services for the award program. Lastly, we could not guarantee that an audience would show up, again because of the fear of this virus.”
Site editor-in-chief Chris Unthank said, “This industry has been devastated this year, to say the least. We want to be respectful of every performer’s and nominee’s time and efforts. We believe we can come back next year for an ever bigger and better awards program to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Absolutely Gospel Music Awards!”
A full list of nominees of the 2020 Absolutely Gospel Music Awards can be found at www.absolutelygospel.com.
