Last week was awards week. The PPA and the AOP both held their big annual awards on, err… the same night. Whether that was by accident or design, given the overlap, I imagine ticket sales were more challenging than usual this year.
I was at the Grosvenor House for the PPA bash, and it was loud, glitzy and resolutely upbeat. If the health of an industry can be measured in decibels, then I can report that magazine media is rocking.
Not a winner (or even shortlisted) myself, I’d like to offer some hopefully helpful observations to my fellow party goers.
We all know that some categories are better than others. Awards host Edith Bowman helpfully alerted us that “this next one’s a big one” several times. If you were the winner of the previous award and were just leaving the stage, I imagine that might have been a tad deflating. But hey, a win’s a win. The PPA equivalent of the ‘best special effects in a foreign language short film’ category is still worth winning.
Try to look happy with your ‘highly commended’. Always announced after the shortlist has been read out, but before the winner is announced, you are in effect being told ‘you’re not the winner’. I wonder perhaps whether it might be better to announce the ‘highly commendeds’ after the winner has picked up their prize – that way, it’s a pick up rather than a put down. But ‘highly commended’ is still cool – it looks good on the mantlepiece, on rate cards or on your CV.
Finally, for those many in the room shortlisted but not a winner (or highly commended), chin up. You’ve had a night out on expenses, hopefully you shared a table with someone fascinating, and are all fired up to perform out of your socks next year. Good luck at the 2019 awards!
