Cover caption: A small sample of Zach Bryan’s 60k-or-so crowd last September at Bourbon & Beyond (nominated this year for Best Music Festival).

July 10, 2025

By Josh Moss, editor, Louisville Magazine

Every July from 1986 through 2019, Louisville Magazine published the Best of Louisville awards. But in 2020 (when was that, 50 years ago now?) we hit pause — and started working on a new approach. We call it the Best of Louisville Voting Academy — a citywide group of groups, some 1,800 of us participating so far. A start. Lots of room to grow. Because we need to hear from more of us, more often.

For this 35th edition of Best of Louisville, no more free-for-all online poll, no more ballot in a print magazine that misses so many of us, no more hipster Highlands editor (ahem, that’d be me) picking his favorites. Instead, the voting academy determined the 38 categories and 210 nominees, then voted for the winners. Throughout the summer, we’re excited to share it all, including plenty of archive fun. (Yup, a Best of Louisville issue from ’87 featured an ode to Circuit City.)

Best of Louisville is back. Please do lemme know if you think of somebody who’d enjoy being a part of it next time around:

josh@louisville.com

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