Award Ceremony Planning Checklist
Preparations for a large-scale event begin with the development of a concept, an idea of how it should look, and an award ceremony planning checklist.
How to organise an awards ceremony
Creating an award ceremony planning checklist can be quite a time-consuming thing to do. If you want to succeed with your event, start planning in advance.
6 Months Before:
Goals & objectives
Before you begin planning any kind of event, the first thing to do is define your event goals and objectives. They should be S.M.A.R.T. goals.
Strategy
Organisations that aspire to be at the top of their industry must invest in their event strategy. Create a solid marketing and communications plan, and use a strong event hashtag.
Target audience
Research and include your audience into the award ceremony checklist.
Award ceremony name
You need to name your award ceremony, brainstorm keywords that relate to your award ceremony brand, set the budget or desired revenue, choose social media outlets, and market your ceremony. If you’re looking to spice up the titles of some awards to excite and honour your attendees, look for a professional naming service for help.
Budget
An event budget is one of the many obstacles that can make or break your awards ceremony. Find out how to build an awards budget with Judgify’s contest planning.
Brief
All you need is proper coordination and a detailed event brief to plan an awards ceremony.
Venue
Organising an awards ceremony is impossible without a venue. The venue should also correspond to the theme of your award ceremony.
4-6 Months Before:
Date & Time
You should set your awards ceremony day and time. You can change the date and time of your event later but not less than a month before the event is set to occur.
Judging
Invite judges, and set judging criteria for your awards. The awards judging process is rigorous and transparent and should be taken very seriously.
Theme
Come up with your awards ceremony theme ideas.
Website & Landing Page
Making an attractive website that is both beautiful and functional with a compelling landing page is closely linked to your award ceremony success. Create an event landing page with just a few clicks with a website builder.
Marketing
Maximise your event marketing strategies with unique industry insights and worksheets, social media campaigns, influencers and opinion leaders, media coverage, and other methods that will help you outperform expectations.
Speakers/Host
To improve your speech and make a smooth transition to the awards section of the ceremony, invite professional speakers and hosts to get you started off right!
Sponsors/Partners
Develop a unique approach to connect with your sponsors and partners; ensure that they maximise their opportunities and become active participants in the awards programme.
Entertainment
Think of entertainment elements for your event. You want to deliver an original and definitive awards program celebrating the creativity of your business to best engage the audience.
Logistics
A convenient location and the availability of necessary technical characteristics, etc., are also important to take care of in advance.
Awards
Develop an awards ceremony script, and follow it closely!
Programme
Finally, you must decide on an awards ceremony script and awards ceremony program. Stick to your award ceremony checklist once it has been established.
Dress Code
Consider the most common dress codes, and think about what they actually mean for men and women. Based on the mood you want to create, define your awards ceremony dress code accordingly.
Floor Plan
Create to-scale floor plans in mere minutes. Our drag-and-drop event floor plan software makes the creation of professional layouts effortless. Customise your designs to impress attendees and boost sales!
2-4 Months Before:
Promotion
You must consider your audience, their interests, and the various factors that will motivate them. Make sure to set a dedicated hashtag for the event for all your social media promotion, invite the media, strengthen your branding, shoot videos, prepare a press release, launch email marketing, etc.
Media & PR
Issue a press release. Share the exciting news with all your fans, friends, followers, and media outlets. Add your award to brochures or other print materials for partners and media representatives so they can find you easily. Contact them and invite them to come to the ceremony.
Guests
To start your award ceremony, apart from considering the awards ceremony guests’ seating, you should also plan banquet services and a menu.
A Week Before:
You will need to make some final preparations in the week before the event launch.
1 Day Before:
Сheck all equipment
Check the equipment as this can make or break an event. An event management equipment list should be designed well in advance and checked the day before the event begins.
Confirm the number of attendees
Event marketers can send automated confirmation letters to the attendees to check who’s definitely coming. Use the best event registration confirmation email samples from awards marketing leaders.
During the Ceremony:
Make sure everyone is having a good time, and remain in control of the situation at all times.
After the Ceremony:
Follow up
It is critically important to take the “next step”, which means you need to call, write, send reminders to attendees in a timely manner, etc. Be sure to make a follow-up effort after the awards ceremony is over and ask for feedback.
Feedback
Feedback is an important indicator of user satisfaction (and a tool to improve the quality of the output). It should be offered to every user as a survey, and the answers can be built on for future event success.
Thank you
Different types of professional thank you letters, along with sample letters, will help you say thank you in a memorable way to all event participants and better retain your customers.
Awards ceremony planning checklist
Good promotion strategies develop brand recognition while also creating a relationship with your event audience. Thus, when planning an awards ceremony, the following list should be considered. Let’s check it out one more time:
- Goals & strategy
- Budget
- Target audience
- Theme
- Awards name and website
- Programme
- Promotion
- Follow up
- Feedback
- Thank you
- Full event success analysis
Learn how to plan an awards ceremony better with the help of our useful blog and other useful resources.
Tips for organising a successful awards ceremony
Here are three key pro tips for organising a successful awards ceremony program.
Design your stage
If you have any ideas on how your event should look, be sure to include this information in your brief. Describe the proposed screens, seamless panels, plasma screens, scenery, and stands, all of which will help you not only visualise exactly how the event will run but also confirm that you are keeping within your budget.
Focus on winners
The main objective of your event is to highlight the finalists and winners as well as possible. Don’t forget about this when you prepare the script; the more individual attention each finalist receives, the more interesting the award ceremony will be and the greater the response it will receive among the attendees.
Create a video
You have been preparing an event for months, planning for every contingency, fighting to stay within your budget, and staying up at night and worrying about each detail. In the end, however, everything goes great, so include it in a reporting video clip! Today, video recording is the fastest and most effective way to share information, so why not take advantage of this method in order to capture the most poignant moments of your award ceremony?
Conclusion
Along with utilising the best ideas on how to prepare your ceremony from beginning to end, awards ceremony marketing should also be carefully conducted. Be sure to test your equipment, invite competent hosts, hire reliable vendors, carefully consider logistics, think of which dishes to choose, and determine how to organise the most interesting awards program you can. Feel free to use the Judgify awards management platform for top-notch event management automation.
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