5th Canadian Independent Music Video Awards

voting for Round 1 of the canadian independent music video awards is officially open! fans can vote once per day for as many videos in as many genre contests as they would like. 4 videos will be selected by fan vote to move on to round 2, and 4 will be selected by judes vote. round 1 of the contest will end on May 1st at 11:59 PM EST.

This year’s grand prize winner will be taking home a $1000 cash prize, a $100 custom merch credit, one month of free advertising, an in studio interview and photoshoot, and more!Stay tuned to our social media for for more prize announcements from our sponsors!

The CIMVA’s were created when Dropout Entertainment saw a gap in the recognition/awards culture. While music videos of artists signed to major labels with huge budgets behind them are often celebrated, no awards existed that recognized solely independent artists and the filmmakers/creators behind the camera of independent music videos. The CIMVA’s were created to shine a spotlight on the dedication, creativity and hard work that Canadian artists put into creating these incredible works of art. 

This contest is open to Canadian Independent artists and creators only.

To qualify, submitted videos must have been released during the 2024 season (January 1, 2024, to December 31, 2024) and the band must include a minimum of 50% Canadian members.

Artist entries must be Independent, this contest does not accept entries from artists signed to the three major music labels (Warner, Sony, or Universal).

This contest is open to all residents from all provinces of Canada except Quebec.

Nominations are now closed. Nominees will be officially announced on April 1st. Round one of the contest will be open to user votes from April 17th, to May 1st.

In Round 1 User votes will account for four of the eight finalists in each genre category. The additional four finalists will be determined by the CIMVA Judges Panel.

As of May 15th, 2025 the category finalists will be posted and voting will again open for round two.

Voting for genre category winners will run until May 29th. Genre category winners are chosen by a combination of user and judges votes. Overall best video is determined at the sole discretion of the CIMVA judges, and will be selected from one of the 6 category winners.

This year’s grand prize winner will be taking home a $1000 cash prize, a $100 custom merch credit, one month of free advertising, an in studio interview and photoshoot, and more!

All awards will be announced at a live awards ceremony held in June, 2025.