About BreakOut West

BreakOut West is an annual music event that includes an immersive, music development conference, music festival hosted by the Western Canadian Music Alliance. The 2024 BreakOut West Festival will be hosted, September 25-29 in Saskatoon, SK.

The WCMA’s head office is in Winnipeg, MB. We recognize the ancestral lands, from Treaty One Territory, the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.

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What is the Western Canadian Music Alliance?

The Western Canadian Music Alliance is an organization created by the Music Industry Associations (MIA’s) of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, The Northwest Territories, and the Yukon Territory to promote and celebrate western Canadian music.

Every year the event is held in a different western Canadian city on a rotational basis.The 2023 BreakOut West event will be held in Kelowna, BC, from October 11 - 15. BreakOut West is comprised of a four-day music conference, a three-night multi-genre music festival.

Mission Statement

BreakOut West is where industry gathers to celebrate, develop and support best western Canadian artists, which are developing sustainable careers of national and international scope. BreakOut West is viewed on a national basis as an integral component, not just of a western Canadian artist’s development but of the Canadian music industry as a whole.

Western Canadian Music Awards History

From 1995 to 1999, the music industry associations of Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan joined forces to stage a yearly independent music festival and conference known as the All Indie Weekend. The success of these events led the three music industry associations to form the Prairie Music Alliance Inc. (May1999), a federally incorporated not-for-profit organization, who would host Prairie Music Week until 2002.

In January 2003, the Prairie Music Alliance Inc. united with the music industry associations of British Colombia and the Yukon forming the Western Canadian Music Alliance Inc. (The Northwest Territories joined in 2009). 

With the shared vision of developing the infrastructure of the independent music industry across western Canada, the Alliance continued the successful music festival and conference tradition with the Western Canadian Music Week (now BreakOut West), host of the Western Canadian Music Awards and Western Canadian Music Industry Awards.