Hosting an Awards Ceremony
Want to get to know people in your industry? Or maybe you’re a company owner and your team has just hit a home run with an excellent performance. An awards ceremony is that magical event type that provides numerous opportunities, from recognising individual achievement to raising funds for a project or a company.
However, huge benefits always come with huge challenges. Awards party planning is a complicated arrangement of many different tasks and goals. Not only should you have a killer strategy on how to attract the right audience but managing the execution on the ground is also critical to success.
With a focus on five fundamental elements of an awards ceremony, we’ve compiled a list of useful hacks that will elevate your chances of hosting an unforgettable event.
The key elements of a successful awards ceremony
An awards planning checklist is your personalised event vision transformed into multiple digestible tasks. Based on your goals and needs, there might be different must-haves on this list, but the following six are critical for almost every event:
- Venue
Although awards ceremonies are still often associated with fancy halls and luxurious hotel facilities, the landscape of venue choices is changing fairly quickly. From office spaces to stadiums, there are really no limits to your creativity.
The key factors that should impact your decision-making in terms of venue selection are audience size, practical suitability, and event budget. However, since finding a place that satisfies all these criteria can be a challenge, you might want to use your imagination here:
- Ask a venue host for a discount if you are trying to establish a long-term contract.
- Look for outdoor facilities to accommodate more guests.
- Focus on empty spaces like galleries that can be easily branded.
A great example of venue transformation is the case study on Dotmailer’s first awards ceremony. To cut costs on design, the agency rented two gallery rooms with white interiors at OXO2 and added a branding touch in the form of dotted cushions, mini-smarties hidden around the venue space, and transparent chairs:
You can read the full case study by Mask Events here.
- Budget
A popular myth about awards ceremonies is that one is always doomed to failure without a solid budget. Granted, if you hire high-profile judges and don’t want to treat your guests to anything less expensive than caviar, it’s definitely complicated to keep costs low. Otherwise, there are thousands of ways to optimise budget spending for an awards event:
- Start your planning by calculating how much money you can attract through sponsorships.
- Hire volunteers to cut costs on onsite staff.
- Don’t make it a never-ending show. If planned right, an awards ceremony can generate a huge impact even if it runs for only three hours. By reducing the agenda, you also reduce your spending on catering, venue rental, and more.
- Theme
An interesting and well-aligned theme gives your awards ceremony a solid shape and tone. For instance, if you choose a Vegas theme, you can add a creative edge to the event through associations with casino-related activities, parlor games, and card tables. Here are some popular themes for both formal and casual awards ceremonies:
- Black and white formal
- Oscars night
- Wine tasting
- Masquerade
- Moulin Rouge
- Auction
When choosing an event theme, focus on ideas that can inspire your audience. For instance, if your awards ceremony is dedicated to family values, you can pick a Disneyland theme and encourage your guests to bring their children.
- Catering
If there’s one piece of event entertainment that any audience will enjoy, it’s definitely the food. Depending on how much time people are expected to spend at your ceremony, you’ll either need to provide them with a full dinner or some snacks.
Your budget and the theme of the ceremony are the key factors that dictate the choice of catering ideas. In any case, there are three fundamental catering standards you should always keep in mind: 1) There has to be healthy food choices on your menu; 2) if you use buffet-style catering, ensure the proper temperatures are maintained; and 3) cater to dietary restrictions and food allergies.
- Stage design
One of the key highlights at any awards ceremony is the stage. Since it’s not always easy to find a place with a suitable stage space and technical capabilities, letting your creativity run free is a necessity. Here are some fresh ideas on how to bring your event stage to life:
- Choose the location strategically. If there’s a pool at the venue, you can construct a stage over it, freeing up as much space as possible for guests.
- Use backdrop images to add some catchy visuals to the scene.
- Impress your guests with a creative stage design; curved and modular stage constructions can be a nice fit, depending on your venue.
- Promotion
Unless it’s a closed company event for internal staff, you’ll need to do some “shouting about it.” Social media and word of mouth are usually the key channels for inviting people to awards ceremonies. Depending on the goals of the event, you can experiment with different formats, from offline outreach to influencer campaigns. While offline outreach is a good strategy for targeting one specific community, the latter works perfectly when it comes to social and fundraising campaigns.
For instance, WonderIn Group recently executed a stunning marketing campaign for a TV network that was focused on the recognition of their own African community. What the agency did is reach out to 80 real-life influencers with personalised event promotion offers. The goal was to create a natural flow of narratives around the theme, which was brought to life by different people. As a result, WonderIn surpassed their goal by 575% in terms of organic social media posts.
Conclusion
These six tips for hosting an awards ceremony should help you create a strong, aligned vision of an awards event, whether it is an internal corporate meeting or a fundraising gala. Use our awards ceremony planning software to succeed!