How to Win Industry Awards for Your Events

The new year is the perfect time to begin thinking about event recognition. Winning an industry award for your successful event not only showcases your hard work, but also builds your profile as an event professional and generates publicity for your organization.

Nominating your event for an award (or multiple awards) is easy when you plan ahead and know what the requirements are for a winning entry. In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know to qualify for event awards and submit a great application. 

Planning An Award-Winning Event

The best award entries begin with intentional event planning, whether the goal is to win for the most innovative event, most engaging event, or anything else. Here are some considerations for planning an award-winning event:  

1. Define your goals with concrete data. Award providers often ask for goals and key metrics to support your entry. Of course, because results are often weighted the heaviest of all entry evaluation criteria, make sure to document all of the most important KPIs early on. 
2. Identify ways to differentiate your event. Many award applications ask, “What made your event unique or original?” Rather than repeating what others have done, evaluate new ways to take your content, activations, and networking to the next level. 
3. Plan for broad impact. Your goals will determine your event’s impact on your business, your attendees, and your industry. Think about the tactics you will use and the data you will capture to create an influential and memorable experience. Demonstrating your ability to attribute your event to growth and positive changes will make your award entry stand out.  
4. Create an immersive experience. As you’re planning the overall event design, consider ways to make the event more visually engaging. These will enhance the event itself as well as photos and videos documenting the event and submitted with award applications. 

Preparing Your Award Entry

Once your event is complete, you’ll be ready to submit your award application. Although each award is different, some core guidelines generally apply: 

1. Address questions and prompts directly. Read all questions carefully to ensure you’ve supplied all the requested information. If you are applying for several awards with similar questions, it can be tempting to copy and paste previous answers, but make sure to avoid accidentally omitting important evaluation criteria specific to a particular application.  
2. Be concise. For long answers, include bullet points, subheads, and line breaks whenever possible for ease of reading. Award judges may have a high volume of entries to read through. Making your submission scannable will make evaluation easier and leave a positive impression. 
3. Respond to feedback. Occasionally, you may receive questions or suggestions in response to your entry. Be sure to implement all recommendations promptly for a strong application.

There are many awards programs that recognize outstanding events and other achievements in the events industry. Some notable awards include the following: 

1. The Experience Design & Technology Awards
2. The Engage Awards 
3. The Fast Company Innovation by Design Awards 
4. The Bizbash Experience Awards
5. The Skift IDEA Awards
6. The Eventex Awards 
7. The IMEX-EIN Innovation in Sustainability Award 
8. The American Business Awards (Stevies) 

RainFocus also presents awards to top-performing event teams. Our annual Innovation Awards recognize customers and partners that demonstrate forward thinking and excellence in their use of the RainFocus platform. These awards are announced during our INSIGHT conference. To learn more or to nominate your team, visit our event website.