Interview
The Academy of Wedding and Event Planning is an official partner of the Australian Event Awards being held in October 2011. As such we want to share as much of this experience with you as possible so that our readers and students can learn from this great event. Here our Course Consultant, Christine Kerr, interviews Ian Steigrad one of the people behind the awards
Christine – Ian congratulations on this, the 3rd year of the Australian Event Awards. The Awards are our industry’s first ‘all-inclusive’ Awards. Can you take us back to the Awards beginning and tell us why the founders of the Awards felt such an Awards program was needed?
Ian – Back in 2008, it became apparent to us that the event industry in Australia, whilst strong and flourishing, tended to see itself in discrete industry segments i.e. that people who were responsible for business events saw themselves as separate from those responsible from sporting events, or festivals. While this segmentation is both understandable and very necessary, we wanted to develop an additional program that would also encourage all events and event products and services to identify as part of a larger picture – to learn to ‘hunt as a pack’ as well as in the smaller segments.
We feel strongly that there is significant strength in numbers and to foster a sense of unity, everyone should be able to participate in a peer-assessed broad based awards program that will encourage excellence and innovation and provide an ‘excuse’ for the entire industry to come together once a year to network, celebrate achievements and share knowledge.
Christine – Three years on, do you feel that the Awards are giving back to the industry what you intended them to?
Ian – In short the answer is “we’re getting there”. Fostering a sense of unity and celebration is something that takes time and relies on developing ties with industry at a grass roots level. I’m very pleased with the progress we’ve made in this regard and the unbelievable support that we have attained from the best suppliers in the industry and from the industry associations and associated groups, especially as we launched this year’s program. The calibre and breadth of the judging panel continues to improve and we’ve managed to retain our clear focus on a transparent and unbiased approach to making the awards.
A particularly unexpected achievement of which I am very proud is the massive media attention that we achieved last year with the introduction of the “Australia’s Favourite Event” competition which took the events industry to a broad based national audience of over 9.7 million people. We’re planning to extend this in 2011 and 2012 enabling us to provide the industry with a promotional focal point in the national media.
Christine - Who are the people behind the Awards and how do you ensure an unbiased judging panel in what is a fairly tight-knit industry?
Ian – The Event Awards is owned and managed by my company, The Epic Team. Our role is simply to administer and market the program.
The Awards themselves are made by the independent Industry Judging Panel which is chaired by Johnny Allen and Sandy Hollway. The identity of those on the Industry Judging Panel is publically available on our website and involves people who are at the top of their profession – specialists in each of the fields in which we have an award. The co-chairs of judges preside over a strict conflict of interest policy which requires judges to make declarations of any involvement in events (or with products or services) that might enter and to recuse themselves from judging these entries. This strict policy does cause us some headaches because, as you correctly point out, the industry is very tight knit – is basically means that we end up with quite a large number of judges to ensure that every entry is scored by at least two, non conflicting judges. That said, these headaches are what makes the Event Awards so prestigious so we’re happy to endure them – we are very focussed on balancing the need to ensure that the awards are peer-assessed with the absolute requirement for transparency and elimination of bias.
We also have an Advisory Panel which is made up of people from each of our stakeholder groups – entrants, judges, sponsors, suppliers, finalists and winners which we gather at the end of each year to review the entire program and to provide insights into things that we need to change and/or improve. We then take these insights out into the industry in the first few months of every year to ‘sanity check’ the advice we have received and shape the following year’s program. We’re acutely aware that we don’t know everything and that it’s only by doing this that we can hope to remain relevant across a huge range of event, products and services well into the future.
Christine – Managing an event like an Awards Show is a massive undertaking and so much must go into it, behind the scenes. Can you give us an idea of how the Awards work, from Award Entry to the announcement of the Award Winner on the night.
Ian – Actually the ‘show’ is the easy part. We are so well supported by the best suppliers in the industry that the show really does ‘stage itself’. The tricky part is keeping our eyes clearly on each phase of development of the program – from the review of feedback from the previous year, to obtaining and making use of industry feedback, to the publication of each year’s categories and criteria, the opening of entries, the arranging of judges scores and comments, the final judging day and then the collation of the results are all time consuming and meticulous work. We don’t want to make a mistake in any of these areas so they require checking by several people. It’s really surprising how quickly all the deadlines for the various phases come around so we really have to keep our eyes on the ball.
One little known fact is that the final judging process is done by secret ballot so no one but one person in our office (the person who orders the trophies) knows who the winners are until they are announced on the awards night. It’s great that we can run the whole program and still allow the judges and the office staff to get a surprise on the night.
Christine – At the Academy we are always encouraging our students to consider the ‘Wow’ factor when designing their events. When entering the Awards I am sure you are not just looking for great events, but presentations that have that ‘something special’. What makes a great Australian Event Awards entry?
Ian – I should note that in answering this question, I’m not a judge. That said, I do get significant feedback each year from the judging panel. The current themes are that a great entry:
- Is entered in the right category. Make sure your event or achievement is suitable to receive an award in the category in which you enter. If in any doubt, re-read the category criteria or give us a call to discuss.
- Paints a picture in words, photos and (optionally) video – it’s important to make the judges feel as though they can really experience the event or achievement that you are entering
- Is focussed clearly on the Award criteria and makes it easy for the judges to score highly against them. Remember that each judges needs to place a number against each criteria to score your entry – make it easy from them by being clear about your achievements against the criteria. We have made the criteria weightings available for a reason – focus your answers on success in the highest weighted criteria
- Shows a high level of commitment to “best practise” – managing risk, creative development, stakeholder identification and needs analysis, effective resource allocation
- Shows great results for your key stakeholders, regardless of budget or constraints
- Demonstrates a commitment to development an innovation – the innovation factor is usually only worth 10% of your score but it can often be the difference between becoming a finalist and becoming a winner.
Christine – Ian, this year the Academy will sponsor the ‘Best Private Event’ category. What do you think makes a ‘great private event’?
Ian – The industry judging panel have set the following criteria for the Academy of Wedding Planners Best Private Event:
- The degree of creativity displayed in the execution of the event 20%The degree to which the event design or theme added to the success of the event (for example use of printed material, site design, staging, table decorations, etc) 15
- The degree to which the event reflected the culture or character of the celebration 15%
- Overall quality of the event delivered 10%
- The degree to which the event has utilised “best practice” techniques in all aspects of planning, preparation, delivery and evaluation 10%
- Effective client communication and management 10%
- The degree to which the event engaged in environmentally sustainable practices and reflects corporate social responsibility 10%
- The degree to which the event has achieved innovation in relation to techniques, knowledge or practices 10%
So you can see that the judges are looking for a structured approach to creativity – not just the use of design and decoration that looks great (though this would be important) but also a strategic approach to design and content that reflects the character and nature of the celebration. Clear demonstration of the outcomes, management and integration with the client and (again) innovation are also important. So to sum it up in one sentence, the Event Awards looks for excellent results delivered through best practise techniques.
Christine - Ian what is the next big thing AAWEP students should be watching out for?
Ian – As a student in events you really need to make sure you keep your eye on all that’s happening around the industry – even in parts that don’t interest you much. There are literally hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of events taking place around Australia every year. Add to that the exceptional role that Australians play in the staging of events globally and you will never stop reading inspiring stories about where a life in events can take you.
In terms of the Awards, it would be worth keeping your eye on the Australian Event Symposium as it develops – it’s a 2-day industry wide conference that will hopefully offer some great insights for students.
Christine - Finally Ian, for our students who have never attended the Awards, can you give them a bit of a sneak peak of what they can expect from the Show this year?
Ian – This might be surprising but we’re actually quite focussed on keeping the ‘show’ relative simple – to make sure that we get the nuts and bolts right and minimise the risk of embarrassment to our winners (remember that “Australia’s Top Model” moment – we want to avoid those…). That said, we do have some incredible capacity in the people who join us to make the ‘show’ happen. Some of the best creative minds with the best products at their disposal are partners of the Event Awards. I don’t want to give away too much but keep an eye out for the MC announcement and take a look at our ‘project delivery partners’ on the website and you might get an idea of some of the likely inclusions.
So there you have it. The Academy is very proud to be associated with the Australian Event Awards and encourages our readers and students alike to carve out some time to attend and network with industry peers.
