Event Industry Awards Judging Process
The event industry involves a lot of work. People work tirelessly and if need be, even around the clock. For such reasons, it’s more than necessary to recognize those who do exceedingly well in the field. An awards ceremony is one such form of recognition. Before the awards can be handed over to the most deserving, first there must be an actual judging process.
Judging Process
The judging process begins promptly after the closing date for submissions. A duly selected panel of judges consisting of respected figures from various industry sectors reviews all the nominations. Following mutually understood and published criteria, every entry gets scored. After tallying the scores, the winner emerges as the one with the highest number of points.
To avoid any controversy, the results remain anonymous and only revealed at the awards ceremony.
Part 1: Finalist Selection
Scoring
The judges divide themselves into 2 sections, a Finalist Scoring Panel (FSP), which handles the finalist selection process and a Winners Scoring Panel (WSP) which selects the winner. The FSP judges go over the entries assigned to them and checks for any conflicts of interest or breach of the rules. If any issues are picked up, they should be reported immediately to the Event Management.
There is a scoring guide which must be used by every judge and can look like:
- Demonstrates lack of understanding of the criteria and failed to follow the guidelines;
- Indicates poor understanding of the criteria and followed part the guidelines;
- Indicates satisfactory understanding of the criteria and followed some the guidelines;
- Indicated good understanding of the criteria and followed most of the guidelines;
- Has an excellent understanding of the criteria and followed all the guidelines.
This score is determined by the core-chairpersons as the pass mark to be considered as a finalist. The finalist threshold score should be equal, or above, to be eligible in becoming a finalist.Finalist Threshold Score
Score Moderation
A universally agreed upon form of moderation should be determined and used by all judges. Every finalist is given a moderated score out of 100.
Automatic Finalists
In each category, the top moderated scores e.g. top three, automatically become finalists.
Finalist Review
Alongside automatic finalists, review entries are reviewed by the WSP. The best entry review qualifies as a Review Finalist for the respective category.
Finalist Announcement
Upon finishing the Finalist Review, both the review finalist and automatic finalist become classified as the Category Finalists. At this point, the Category Finalists get released.
Part 2: Winner Selection for all categories except Headline Categories
Category Allocation
Every WSP member gets allocated to specific categories to review and coordinate. The WSP members check for all issues that may be conflicts of interests in relation to other interests. To help in the judging, comments made by the FSP can be used by the WSP in making a final decision.
Final Judging Day
On final judging day, the WSP is required to be present. In the case of an absent panelist, personnel from management can stand in for them.
Sub-Panel Review
For a thorough job, it may be necessary to break the WSP into sub-panels. Each sub-panel will be solely responsible for thoroughly reviewing every finalist in each of the assigned categories. There must be a process which should be outlined and made clear to every member in the sub-panel.
Full Panel Review
A full panel review is necessary as it will help iron out any kinks and eliminate any biases which may have been overlooked by the sub-panel. Therefore, the full panel should consider the recommendations provided by each sub-panel, and vote for the winner of each category. When a full panel convenes, a set of processes and procedures should be followed to help keep everything uniform.
Part 3: Winner Selection for the Headline Categories
Lifetime Achievement Award – One Step Process
For the Lifetime Achievement Award, there are no finalists required. Instead, a full panel of WSP members meets to review the entries on the day of judging. Beforehand, WSP members had the opportunity of reviewing entries for this award via judges’ portal. On the day of judging, the entries are put forward, and voting is done on the spot. Depending on the reviewers, voting can be done by a show of hands or cast in a small ballot. For ballot voting, the votes are sealed and kept by management to be counted later. Every judge is awarded a chance to vote with each vote counted as one. In case there is a tie, it can be broken using a system to be determined by the core-chairpersons.
State or Territory Award – One Step Process
For this award, the categories and criteria remain the same. It should be carried out in the same likeness as the national event awards.
Favorite Event – Public Vote Process
This is the people’s choice. Voting is left to the members of the public who select their favorite finalist from the best event category. There should be a uniform set of regulation and rules to be followed by the finalists, as well as the public when voting. Management decides how the voting process will be conducted. It is a must to inform voters of the official closing date for voting.
Part 4: State and Territory Winners
For these Awards, the categories and criteria remain the same and above. The qualification, moderations, and judging are also done similarly. At the Awards ceremony, the State and Territory winners will be announced and displayed on the screen. Certificates of recognition and awards should also be made available at the event.
Unforeseen Circumstances
In case there are any glitches or technicalities which arise, the co-chairpersons should deliberate and find a common solution to determine the way forward.
Preferential Voting
Preferential voting should come into play only on unique awards. Usually, Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) is the preferential voting when deciding the winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Instant Runoff Voting Explained
The IRV procedure starts off by counting the voters’ first choice. This is followed by determining the candidate that holds the majority votes. The candidate with most votes becomes the winner with the rest eliminated and cast for the next event.
Tie-Breaking Rules
In case there are at least two candidates with the least equal number of votes, then their scores can be combined and checked against the next highest candidate. Should the combined votes be lower than that of the next highest candidate, then the tied set are eliminated. After redistributing their preferences, the procedure can be repeated until a determined number of preferences (for example 8) have been counted.
Appeals
Please note that the judges’ decision is final. The results stand as they are regardless of any issues raised by the organizers, entrants or judging panel. There is no appeals process for the Event Awards.
Conclusion
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