It's on! One thousand judges started casting their votes at 9am today in the 2008 ARIA Awards.

These judges will determine the winners in 26 ARIA Awards Categories. Two more categories (Highest Selling Single and Highest Selling Album) are determined by sales audit.

All votes are placed via a secure website, with the judges selecting three entries in each category. Their first choice gets five points, their second, three points, and their third choice, one point. All points are tallied and the entry with the most points in each category is determined the winner.

Voting closes at 6pm next Friday, August 15. The final five nominees in each category will be announced at the Nominations Event to be held Wednesday, Sept 10 at Carriageworks, Sydney.

The details for the ARIA Awards, proudly presented by Motorola and the biggest and best night in the music industry calendar, have finally been announced. So grab your diaries and make a note of these dates:

The 22nd ANNUAL ARIA AWARDS will be held Sunday, 19th October 2008 at Sydney's Acer Arena.

The final five nominees in each category will be announced at the NOMINATIONS EVENT, to be held Wednesday, September 10 at Sydney's Carriageworks. The winners in the Artisan Award categories (Best Video, Best Cover Art, Engineer of the Year, Producer of the Year) will also be announced at this event.

The winners in the Fine Arts categories (Best World Music Album, Best Classical Album, Best Jazz Album, and Best Original Soundtrack/Cast/Show Album) will be announced at the FINE ARTS AWARDS, to be held the evening of Monday, September 29, at the City Recital Hall, Sydney.

As always, tickets are available to both industry and general public guests.

You can get your general public tickets through from noon on Wednesday, September 10.

And what a special night it was. ARIA congratulates the ARIA Hall of Fame inductees for 2008 - ROLF HARRIS, MAX MERRITT, DRAGON, RUSSELL MORRIS and THE TRIFFIDS.

Held last night at Melbourne's Town Hall, the Hall of Fame included appearances from not only the inductees, but also The Living End (who gave a blistering rendition of John O'Keefe's The Wild One to celebrate 50 years of Australian rock 'n' roll), James Reyne, Ian Moss, Tim Freedman (The Whitlams), Col Joye AM, Nick Cave, Rob Snarski, Kasey Chambers, Lior, Steve Kilbey and Tim Powles (The Church), Rob Hirst (Midnight Oil) and past Hall of Fame inductees, The Seekers.

For more information, visit the ARIA Hall of Fame website (link to www.ariahalloffame.com.au).