The jury, formed by the officially established Soviet composers and musicologists, was chaired by Yuri Saulsky and included Murad Kazhlayev, Giya Kancheli, Konstantin Pevzner, Vladimir Rubashevsky, Arkadi Petrov, and others.
The second prize was won by Alexander Sitkovetsky’s art rock group Autograph from Moscow, Gunesh from Ashkhabad, Turkmen SSR, playing jazz-rock based on Turkmen folk melodies, and Labyrinth from Batumi, Adjar ASSR, Georgia, which performed a half-hour composition marrying folk-rock with traditional Georgian choral music.
The professional Georgian soft-rock band VIA-75 led by Robert Bardzimashvili, to the surprise of many, received only the third prize which they shared with Dialog led by the organist Kim Breitburg from Donetsk, Ukrainian SSR, the eclectic band Integral from Saratov, Russian SFSR, and Tip-Top from Riga, Latvian SSR, whose success was largely indebted to the singer Harald Simanis.
The compilation of the award-winning songs was released as a 2 LP Laureaty festivalya "Vesenniye ritmy, Tbilisi-80" (Russian: Лауреаты фестиваля «Весенние ритмы, Тбилиси-80», lit.
The jury members walked out of a concert when the musicians drank port wine right on the stage and made provocative body movements, with Grebenshchikov playing his guitar in the prone position.