Each year, we produce a book featuring the top 17 local bands in Columbus, Ohio. Each band gets an elaborate two page spread featuring a large promotional photo, live photos, and an article, all written by local creatives that love the music scene. It’s not easy narrowing the list of amazing bands each year to just 17, so we’ve got a bit of a process that we use to choose bands:
Open Nomination: July 1st -November 30th each year
Open nomination is the time for everyone to be heard! We encourage every person to suggest their favorite local band, and even allow bands to nominate themselves. All you have to do is send us and email, post your nomination on thehot17.com, or post it on our Facebook Page. Either way, we compile a huge list of the bands and then separate them by genre, for easier sorting. After that, we start scheduling listening parties.
Listening Parties: Every other Tuesday starting September 27th and ending December 6th, 2011. Each listening party is a private, invitation only event for some of Columbus’ most renouned insiders. But it’s not completely behind doors, we film the round table discussions at the listening party and then post it online for you. Based on what the general opinion that we get at the listening parties, we move into our band selection and other production phases.
Band Selection: December 16th, 2011
Band Assignment: January 1, 2012
Production: January 1 – May 14th, 2012
Volume 2 Release – June 1, 2012
