Award Ceremony Planners Hints
12 Ways to Make Awards Ceremonies Better… or Just Different
Practical and mainly cost free ways to freshen up planning an award ceremony
Brevity – The Golden Rule
Only feature those that inspire and interest others, as it needs to motivate the onlookers as well as recognise the winners.
Make Them Hard to Win
It gives your awards kudos if you can pull it off.
Innovate
Make it different to what has gone before. Change the awards, bring in new technologically like audience polling – see below.
Awards then Party
Have the Awards in an auditorium or separate meeting room and then throw a party to celebrate and network, rather than leave awards to the end.
Start and End on a High
Kick off with a top award to start as well as end the show to grab audience attention.
Audience Participation
Audience polling is commonplace, so give them an opportunity to vote.
Stagger the Awards
If you can’t condense, then stagger awards to avoid a long marathon session, where no one feels valued and the audience is alienated.
Theme
Use theming with discretion provided it will make an impact for all the right reasons. It can work if in line with corporate goals or makes it fun for audience engagement, but avoid cheesy and tacky.
Little Touches
Simple gestures, such as a hand written note of appreciation and thanks from someone special, that is tailored to recognise the achievement is valuable.
Audience Engagement
Communicate in advance and on the night via website, apps, programme what the ward is about and what has been done to achieve it, build the hype.
Technology
Look at what’s new and what can be done for maximum effect such as 3D mapping, projecting images and branding onto walls, especially effective in blank canvass style venues.
Rehearsal
A dry run of every aspect reaps huge rewards.