Jagermeister AIR Awards Guidelines

• For the following categories, albums in contention will be selected based on their overall performance in the charts over a 12 month period from September 1 2007 to August 31, 2008.     
  Best Independent Album
  Best Independent Single/EP
  Best Urban & Hip Hop
  Best Country
  Best Blues & Roots
  Best Hard Rock & Punk
  

A total score has been calculated with regards to a title's spread across all 20 AIR independent chart positions over the past year and a shortlist of 10 albums has been collated. The judging pool is made up from approximately 350 members of the retail and media sectors of the music industry.

• Due to the fact that both the Dance/Electronica and Jazz genres don't necessarily depend on chart activity to measure success, AIR has taken into consideration the artist's performance and participation in the industry outside of the charts. Nominations have been received from a seperate judging pool considered to be experts in their field and selected by the AIR Awards Committee.  The same judging pool will be responsible collectively for judging each of the releases and assessing them in terms of the artistic and industry achievement. Both select judging pools will number about 50 people.
  
  
• The Independent Artist of the Year and Best New Independent Artist category will be selected from a pool of artists who have performed well throughout the year, informed by their ranked sales performance. These categories will also take into consideration the artist's performance and participation in the industry outside of the charts. The final decision on nominees and winners is subject to scrutiny and debate by the AIR Board of Directors and AIR Awards Committee.