New Friends Wins It's Your Shot's $100K Prize Pack

By FYI Staff

Slaight Music – champion and prime supporter of the Canadian music industry – has crowned New Friends the winner of It’s Your Shot 2021, Canada’s premiere songwriting and artist development competition.

New Friends takes home the grand prize valued at over $100,000, including recording, distribution, radio promotion, publicity, and marketing support via 2021 label partner Hidden Pony Records, along with a professionally produced photo shoot, artist biography and music video. Additionally, they will receive business mentoring, personalized development of their brand, and live performance opportunities in 2022.

“We are extremely honoured and grateful for Slaight Music and the Slaight family's generosity and interest in our group”, says New Friends’ Conrad Galecki. “As a young aspiring band, it is always such a surreal experience to know that we have support from some of the biggest names in Canadian entertainment."

Adds Hidden Pony Records’ Mike “Parkside” Renaud, “Hidden Pony Records is thrilled to partner once again with Slaight Music on the It's Your Shot contest. After such a successful campaign developing Moscow Apartment, we're thrilled to once again work with this year's winner, New Friends, and find innovative ways to capitalize on the momentum the band have already created for themselves.”

“This year we received over 700 entries for It’s Your Shot and the calibre of talent from across Canada is amazing. Congratulations to New Friends; the whole Slaight Music team is very excited to start working with them on their musical journey. We would also like to thank the 25 industry judges that participated in helping us in getting to the finalist decision,” says Ali Slaight, Manager, Artist Development and Music Repertoire for Slaight Music.

It’s Your Shot is one of the many initiatives put forth by Slaight Music—a company focused on discovering, developing, inspiring and supporting Canadian recording artists. Past winners of the It’s Your Shot competition include: Liz Coyles (2011/Maple Music), Thought Beneath Film (2012/Maple Music), Jillea (2013/Universal Music Canada), Sam Drysdale (2014/Warner Music Canada), Kayla Diamond (2015/Cadence), Notifi (2016/Sony Music Canada), Moscow Apartment (2018/Hidden Pony Records) and Johnny Shay (2019/Black Box).

For more information on Slaight Music, please visit here

For more information on It’s Your Shot, please visit here