Our Thoughts On What To Do If You Win The $20,000
This photo of how excited you’d be if you were a band who won $20,000 was taken by Caleb Sugai at a Lip Critic show in New York City.
Are you a musician? Painfully skint?
No need to fret, we've got you covered. Up and Monster Children, in association with BIGSOUND, present Upstarters, a new initiative we’ve created offering emerging Australian artists the chance to win $20,000 to support touring, recording, and the next creative chapter of their career. Free and easy to enter—all you need is a name, a song, and a story.
Judged by an eclectic panel from Monster Children, BIGSOUND, Up and the Australian music industry, the top five shortlisted artists will play the inaugural Up x Monster Children showcase at BIGSOUND 2026 in Brisbane (1–4 September), with one artist taking home the grand prize: twenty thousand gorgeous Australian dollarydoos to throw at whatever musical thing they like.
Applications must be submitted via the Program's online application portal by 11.59pm AEST on August 15th, 2026.
In case you’re a lucky winner, here are thirty solid ideas we came up with for what you ought to do/buy/get with $20,000 Australian dollars.
Buy a tour van that actually runs
Book studio time to record your debut EP
Six thousand guitar picks
Do fuck all for like three months
Thirty brand new Korg Minilogues
Book a North American or European tour
Start your own record label and put yourself out there
Pay someone more famous than you to collaborate
Four thousand sets of guitar strings
Approximately three hundred snare drums
Put on your own showcase at a local venue and invite other more prominent local bands to play so that their fans become your fans
Contact David Bowie from beyond the grave and ask him to write you a little something
Print four thousand color posters advertising yourself and put them around town
Buy a double-page ad in the coming print issue of Monster Children
Pay off the debt you’ve amassed buying instruments on a payment plan
Spend a few months in another city that has a more established music scene from which you can learn
Shoot a music video directed by Baz Luhrmann
The pokies
Australia’s newest Big Thing: you
Hire a tour photographer/videographer because these days its not enough just to be a good musician, you have to show up on socials
Buy your own song on iTunes twenty thousand times to trick the algorithm into thinking that you’re a hit (and you make some of that money back!)
Writer’s retreat in the Swiss Alps
Hire a publicist on a contract basis to get you more immediate notoriety
Purchase the musical catalog of a lesser known artist and pass their hit off as your own
Build your own studio space to record at will
Get an airplane to write your name in the sky
See more live shows than you ever have and become inspired
Professionally master your entire back catalogue
Hire a graphic designer or cool firm (us) to design you a visual identity package so that you can stop feeling awkward about designing your own flyers and album art
Donate it all to charity, end up on the news, plug your Bandcamp page