How to Create the Best Awards Show in 2019

By: Tetiana Hanchar Tetiana Hanchar
Date: Jun 28, 2019
Comment: 0
Category: Awards Marketing

Grammy and Oscar. How much time did you spend counting days to these ceremonies? Have you ever shouted something like “Yeah!” or “Rock on!” directly into your TV screen, while watching awards shows?

Don’t deny that you’ve been doing this kind of stuff! We all love awards ceremonies for the spirit of competition that they’re filled with. The celebration of achievements, no matter which sphere of social activity or business they are related to, is gaining crazy popularity in the modern world. Let’s take our “TV-award-fan-expertise”, connect it with the contest planning tips, and discuss what a successful awards ceremony is comprised of!

Success awards show: Key highlights

We have 5 simple steps for you. Complete them and you can be sure that all of the critical elements of an awards show are in your pocket!

Tips for planners

Know your limits. In order to start visualizing the awards ceremony, you must have a clear understanding of what your budget is. Get acquainted with the best suppliers, negotiate all prices and here it is! A magic number (or not really that magic) is in your head!
Get a grasp of graphic visuals. If you’re about to organize an awards show, make sure it looks unforgettable. Think of the graphic design, video snippets, previews… Anything that might impress the sensibility of your attendees!
Stage it. Align your brand vision with the stage, which will be used for the ceremony. You can even facilitate the spot for awarding without the stage itself, depending on what the format of the show is. Just make it appealing. Also, and maybe most importantly, within budget.
Enlighten your show and let it sound. It goes without saying, without good lighting and ear pleasing sounds, no positive ceremony atmosphere can be created.
Film it. Even if your client doesn’t need a video from the ceremony, film it and view the highlights of the show afterward. That’s a great way to learn from mistakes!

Types of awards shows

Your imagination can definitely generate hundreds of ceremony types like “The best office Grumbler” or “Anti-Fashion.” You don’t need our help in this area. What you have to consider is that whatever show you set up, it falls into one of four categories:

Internal – firm or organization competitions
External – industry-wide races
Recognition – win-win events
PR – karma enhancement contests for organizations or brands

Organizing an awards ceremony

To organize an awards event, not only a wagon of creativity is required. You’ll also have to be well-acquainted with the stages of awards show realization.

Choose contents. Identify what message your awards show has to deliver. Picking the right content will make your ceremony engaging and meaningful.
Set the production in motion. Think the strategies for your design implementation over, discuss the stage setting, and you’ll have the major part of production work done!
Grab some food. Buffet refreshments will never be redundant. Consider catering to keep your guests and participants engaged.
Make your show well staffed. Attract guests that your client wants to see at the ceremony. Also, consider involving judges in your success awards ceremony to add objective expertise.
Manage your timing. Smart scheduling is crucial for the awards show to run, according to the plan. Establish the timeline for speeches, consider the walk-on timing, and you will have everything controlled.
Stick to your budget. Whatever production steps you take, align it with your financials. To stay on the safe side, capture all your expenses on paper. Don’t forget a backup!
Choose the location & venue that resonate. If you can surely say that the majority of your guests will have no problems with getting to your show, and all of them will consider the venue suitable, this is the one.
Attract sponsorships. Help your clients get funding for their show by building the contest image that would be attracting for the target sponsors.

Judging process

When you create an awards show, the judging process takes place according to certain judging criteria. There may be numerous criteria for judging depending on the company, participants or the event format, etc. Every judge may introduce his/her criteria, or they may be established by the rules of the awards contest. Either way, fair judging is impossible without clear awards criteria.

There is a variety of criteria for judging:

Event concept
Value
Delivery and impact
Overview of the innovation/product
Why you think your entry should win
Total Budget
The usability/functionality of the product
The effectiveness and performance of the product
Personal vs. professional qualities, etc.

For event planning and organising a fairly judged contest, always use effective judging solutions. Online judging allows users to customise judging criteria, set up their own rules, and manage judging rounds to assign judges, and more. Judges will utilise the login and password provided to protect the data.

How to market/promote awards

To make an awards show, you must assemble a team who can promote it in a variety of ways, including:

Social media
SEO
Media
Media partnerships
Press release
Email marketing
Video marketing
Offline promotion

In a nutshell, you should develop a strong promotional plan to promote your awards ceremony. If you’re not sure who your event audience is, you’re welcome to read about that on our blog and learn how to find your target audience for an event so you can better focus on how to create an awards show.

How to host awards

To host awards shows, you should hire an experienced speaker. There are a few advantages to hiring someone with years of experience as a host to be the face of your awards event. Invite experienced hosts or simply those people who you know will pronounce the winners’ names incorrectly and won’t fall off the stage.

Mistakes to avoid when planning your awards show

There are a number of common mistakes to avoid when you plan an awards show. Here are some of the most important ones to consider carefully:

1) Not testing the equipment beforehand

Take a moment to test the microphone, speakers, lighting gear, and other equipment before the awards ceremony begins.

2) Dragging it out

No one likes wasting time. When you drag out your awards, you steal time away from your guests. If the event is delayed because of the registration overload and crowds, use professional check-in equipment to fast-track the lines.

3) Not pronouncing recipients’ names correctly

Making a smooth transition to the process of giving out awards may be embarrassing if you pronounce the winners’ names incorrectly. It’s awkward and makes the winner feel lousy. Rehearse and make sure that you’ve invited hosts that know the nominees and can read their names properly from the cards so they don’t spoil the moment.

4) Not mentioning your sponsors

Remember that if you want to retain your sponsors for the following year, you need to make their logos visible to the guests. That being said, their branding should not overdo or deter the attention of viewers from your own branding and marketing materials/signage.

5) Announcing the wrong winner

Once your prize draw, awards ceremony, or competition is over, your followers will be anxious to know who won in certain categories and nominations. When the winner is unclear, or the announcement is botched, the whole audience feels disappointed or cheated in some way.

Checklist

To succeed with any awards ceremony, each event organiser should be well prepared and have a checklist on hand that includes:

Planning phase
Sending invitations
Submission process
Choosing judges
Starting speech
Initiating a ceremony
Running a ceremony
Voting, automated scoring, and reporting
Winners recognition
Closing & following up

Choose the best awards ceremony organisation and management tools to support your awards ceremony life cycle from beginning to end and achieve incredible results!

Success awards show: Signs and symptoms

What is a successful awards event and how is it measured? There is no standard recipe, due to the diversity of ceremony formats and goals. However, we can offer you several signs that every successful awards show entails:

The data on the “goal list” complies with the outcomes. This means that the objectives that you and your client have initially established, ended up marked as “complete” in your notebook.
Exit poll results satisfy you. No one will rate your contest better than the guests. Catch 3 random attendees, leaving the spot, and ask them a simple question: “Did you enjoy the event?” Got 3 “yeses”? Congratulations! You’ve been really good!
Social media approves. We’ll not be the first(or Last) to say that the power of social media platforms is irreplaceable in modern advertising and promotion. If you want to know whether your contest ceremony was successful, look through the hashtags, which entail the name of the show. Found some with pictures and “thank you” comments? High five! That’s definitely a sign of success.

Best awards show example

We’ve decided to present A’Design Award and Competition just to give you an idea of how to organize awards event. A’Design embraces the most diverse nominations in the design sphere ever known, like Spacial, Industrial Design, etc. There are several prize categories implied and a multi-level judging process. The impressive contest, which started as a PhD thesis, is a great example to follow for two reasons. First, it attracts people on a global scale. Second, it’s based on creativity and unbelievably good planning.

Conclusion

Awarding people the means of giving honor to the achievements of the global society. The celebration of knowledge and expertise is something that motivates us to keep going and to broaden our perspectives. This is why awards ceremonies matter. By having a good idea of what stages a show embraces and how creativity may benefit from their recognition, we can make the celebration of our achievements considerably better.

Looking for an expert in awards show organization? Get started with Judgify awards planning software for free, and have your awards contest hitting the highest mark via public voting software!