Technically only two new things have been added to this year?s edition of Ghana Music Awards. One is that the Record of the Year has been brought back as an additional category and the African Song category has been replaced with African Artiste of the Year. Yet the event looms bigger than it ever has.

The plaque which the winners will take home looks more smashing than it was and in the tradition of the awards, the event is expected to be rich in entertainment value but besides these, the most significant introduction is the enlargement of the award event to span a period of eight days.

The Event Director of Charterhouse, the organisers, Theresa Ayoade, has told Showbiz that this year marks the seventh anniversary of Ghana Music Awards and as part of the celebration, the event will henceforth run as a festival over a period of eight days. She said the event will include a massive musical concert on the night of March 6, 2006 at the Independence Square in Accra.

This concert, she said, will climax events of the Awards Festival and will feature performances from top African artistes from South Africa, Cote D?Ivoire, Togo, Nigeria and all nominees of this year?s Ghana Music Awards Festival.

The official commencement of the Awards Festival will be on Wednesday March 1, 2006, at Alliance Francaise in Accra, this is dubbed The Ghana Music Awards Highlife Night.

On that night, patrons will be treated to live performances from very renowned and well known music artistes.

The Awards Festival will continue the following day, Thursday, March 2, at the Novotel hotel in Accra with the celebration of the Ghana Music Industry Awards Night.

A day?s seminar will also be held at Alisa Hotel to discuss the most pertinent issues affecting the development of Ghana?s Music Industry - piracy.

Key speakers for that night will include the Chairman of the MTV South African Music Awards, the Legal and Business Affairs Director of EMI Music, Kgopotso Leslie Sedibe, representatives of MUSIGA and the Ministry of Tourism.

Again as part of the festival, the Accra International Conference Centre will on Sunday March 5, hold what is expected to be the biggest gospel festival ever organized in the country.

The show will feature top South African and Nigerian gospel artistes and others from Ghana.

All nominees of the gospel category of this year?s Ghana Music Awards festival will also be on stage to perform.

The most exciting part of the whole festival, however, remains the awards for which Wutah, the hiplife duo, leads the nomination list with ten appearances.

According to the nomination list released yesterday by Charter House, at the programme?s launch in Accra, Wutah has nominations in ten categories, including Popular Song, Artiste of the Year, Hipife Song of the Year and Hiplife Artiste of the year.

Wutah is followed three point less by Ofori Amponsah, Castro and Praye who all take seven nominations each.

Nkasei and Kwabena Kwabena follow with five nominations and those who have three nominations are Amandzeba, Mzbel, Nana Quame and Nana Fynn.

In the gospel categories, it is Noble Nketsia and Florence Obinim who top with five nominations each. Adjoa Amankwaa has four and three artists, Jane & Bernice, Georgia Adjei and Seth Frimpong, have three nominations each.

The nominations are yet to be voted upon by the public after which the list in each category will be trimmed to the final four.