Award Function
Event Management of Award Ceremonies that honor staff or acquire and customers. Award Ceremonies are an important type of events when you consider that we live in a society that loves to honor people for their achievements. Some of the most watched programs on television are award ceremonies including the Oscars, the Grammy’s and the Olympics. Companies, organizations and other groups love to honor their own. These ceremonies are coordinated by in-hour meeting or marketing professionals or outside companies. The components of putting together an awards ceremony include:
Planning of Award Ceremonies
The co-ordination of the judging process. Particularly in a non-profit, this may be done by a committee. If you pick celebrities, particularly media celebrities to be judges, you will likely guarantee that your event will be on television or in the newspaper. Once you have the judges. Make sure they understand the rules and agree to keep their selections secret until the ceremony.
Once you have the judges, the next decision is how you will accept submissions. You can run an announcement in the local media if want to get submissions from throughout the community. If the awards are based on performance from within an organization, ask for submissions from within that organization.
The scope of the awards ceremony will determine where you will hold the event. If you are handing out awards to recognize community service, you may want to consider a large banquet room at a hotel. Small awards ceremonies that are just for the company could be held in the company board room or at a local restaurant. If you are planning a big community event, you will have unique challenges. If the ceremony is a formal dinner, you have to decide menus and make sure that the venue has everything needed for a successful ceremony.
Who will be the master of ceremonies? This is an important honor. If this is just a corporate event, the owner or other company executive may have this task. For large community events, having a celebrity as master of ceremonies will draw attention to your ceremony. This can be a local celebrity that everyone knows or if you have the budget, a well-known celebrity. Just make sure the person is comfortable with speaking in front of crowds.
You will likely want to have a guest speaker or speakers at your awards ceremony, particularly if these are community-oriented awards. Guest speakers can talk about the mission of your organization inspire others to be award winners next year. Again, you can choose a local celebrity, a well-known personality or someone from within your organization.
As guests are entering and even during the ceremony, you want them to be entertained. The type of entertainment will be determined by type of event. You don’t want a rock band at an awards ceremony honoring those who have raised money for a conservative nonprofit. And the entertainment does not have to be extremely formal. Have someone playing the piano as guests arrive and possibly as they eat dinner.
The invitation to an awards ceremony needs to reflect the spirit and mood of the event. A community celebration should have a colorful logo from the sponsoring organization. Most formal initiations have a font that resembles elegant calligraphy. Make sure you include a way for guests to RSVP. You want to make sure the honorees are there. Thanks to advances in desktop publishing, these invitations don’t have to be expensive. The invitations can be created online and printed from the office printer (if the printer makes quality copies).
Guest registration at the awards ceremony is especially important if you want to make sure the honorees are in attendance. You can set up a table outside the entrance to the meeting room and ask people to sign a sheet. If you are having a less formal event, you can even issue name tags to the guests at the registration table.
If your awards ceremony is a community event, you will want to sell tables. You have a few ways to approach table sales. 1. You can run an announcement in the newspaper and local media announcing the even. Be sure to include information about how to purchase a table. 2. If this is an annual event, draft letters to past attendees reminding them of the event and asking them for their support again. 3. Have volunteers assist with table sales by asking their colleagues and friends.
Finally, remember you have to purchase the awards. These can be statuettes, like the Oscar, plaques or framed certificates. Make sure you order them in plenty of time for them to be ready for the awards ceremony and in enough time to correct any errors.
See Photo's