Transcript
A couple of months ago I had Ovanes Ovanessian, organiser of the Eventex Awards, in our studio to introduce their new awards for the event industry. Today, he will reveal the winners of the worldwide event competition.
Hi Ovanes, welcome back to our studio.
Hi, glad to be here again.
We talked before about the Eventex Awards and now is the time the winners are announced. Who's the winner of the biggest category, the event of the year?
The event of the year category has been won by Electric Island Dancergy.
And why was that? What was so special about that event?
Well, I really liked that entry because, as people were dancing, the energy was supplied by a generator, they also used solar energy and people could see the effect they had on the sustainability of the event.
Okay, so it was a really green event.
Yeah. Actually, the jury had decided that this should be the winner, and all their ratings and comments are public, so anyone can see them on the website.
So, on your website, we can see why the jury did choose this event to be the winner.
Yeah, exactly. It's just public, and it will always be. It's really important for us to be transparent about this.
Yeah, that's very remarkable, because most of the awards shows don't have that transparency. How are the reactions on that, did the participants, the jury, did they like this way of working?
Well, some of them were surprised maybe a bit, but most of the people really liked that approach because it really shows transparency, and they can be 100% sure the entries can't be manipulated and these are the real winners.
Did you get any negative remarks on that? For example, a participant that says 'I don't agree with that jury member' ?
Well, we've done four awards up to now, and we've had that issue once or twice, but actually, if a jury decides that an event is not so great, and the event organiser knows how much energy and effort was put into organising the event, of course he'll not be happy with the rating.
Indeed, indeed. You also had other categories. We won't talk about every category, but for example, the conference of the year. It was won by a Dutch event.
Yeah, the Buiten Congress.
Yep. And what was special about that one?
Well, I didn't judge this category, so, the most important part for each entry is the way they present their entry, because, I think many people have this problem, they have a great event, they put so much effort into it, and after, when they participate in the awards competition, they just do it for twenty minutes and after that, the judges can't see what the event organiser knows that he has done, but if they haven't shown it, they can't win.
One of the categories I was in as a jury member was the Event Technology of the Year, and I really liked that category, because of the new technologies. The winner of that category was sl.ido.
Yeah, great actually, I met the guys at a conference, in London and I really love their software. We'll actually use it for our next event, which is this Thursday. And, I really like the simplicity because you don't have to install a mobile app on your mobile. You just go to an address, which is really easy, sli.do something, and you can leave your feedback or ask a question.
So, it's a platform for interaction with your audience.
Ah, it's more a platform for interaction of the audience with the speaker. So, they can ask a question, and the speaker can answer, and it's a great way that people can ask their questions and get the answer they ...
Thank you. Will there be Eventex Awards next year?
This year, actually.
This year?
Yeah, there will be, and there will be a ceremony, and it will be part of Eventex Congress, which will be in Bulgaria, 25th and 26th of February 2015.
Okay, okay. And, did you learn something from these awards, that you will change in the next version?
Yeah, of course. We'll remove some of the categories, and add new ones of course, because we had some categories that were really, with strong competition, like Technology of the Year, which was great, but we had some categories that were not so good, so we won't be having them again for next year.
Okay. Looking forward to that, Ovanes.
Me too. And, I hope more people take part in next year's event.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.
And you at home, thank you for watching our show. I hope to see you next time.
