I was ironing linen trousers at 9am (dress code: summer chic), two champagnes in by lunchtime, and on the tube home by six, because the Awards Awards awards awards to people who have places to be.
Corporate awards events are the starriest parties in professional Britain. Just before the summer hiatus, the Awards Awards is the whole “awards industry” in microcosm. A huge conference centre in Battersea Park, packed out with 73 circular tables of events people, with black felt surfaces, twinkling ceiling lights and a red carpet down the middle. Over the vast floors, kaleidoscopic shapes leap out of zany gobos. Outside, a stretch tent, more carpet, fizz.
Looking through the nominees you saw a cross-section of working life and economic activity in the UK today. There were the Pride in the Job Awards (for house building), the Nursing Times Awards, the PM Society Awards (pharmaceutical marketing) and the Civil Service Awards. There were the Kimberly-Clark Professional Golden Service Awards (for contract cleaning), the routeone Awards (“the ultimate mark of excellence in the coach and bus industry”) and the EA Masters (for estate agents).
Rory Ross Russell met Claire Wormsley in a Starbucks 16 years ago and neither had run an awards event before, but that didn’t stop them. They were both working in the events and conference business, and noticed that the awards people they knew and respected were going criminally unawarded. In that first year, they hired a venue that sat 200 people and had to change it when they sold 450 tickets.
Like all awards people I met, they were both so clubbable. Between them, they had decades of awards anecdotes they’d drop in now and again, like the one about the time a famous comedian was punched by a guest after presenting a ceremony. I phoned Claire a week before the Awards Awards, when they were in the middle of chasing logos, proofing slides, briefing photographers and finishing the table plan. She said they “make sure the winners are dotted around the room, so people don’t think, ‘I’m sitting at the back, there’s no chance of me winning’.” Those who might be rivals are kept apart.
The trophies were in transit to arrive at Rory’s house, where the engravings would be double and triple checked, not by him, nor by Claire, but by Rory’s wife, Sian. Fresh eyes, plus as Claire said, “He’s as bad at proofing as I am.” “Whatever happens,” Rory said, “I always think it can never be as bad as that La La Land thing . . . ” The Oscars 2017, when the wrong winner was called up and the statuettes had to be handed over, haunts every awards person’s nightmares.
In the lead-up to an awards event, organisers start to talk obsessively about a mysterious and all-encompassing “They”. Much more than a simple pronoun, this is the “Showbiz They”: the audience as one body and mind. What will They think of this food? They really better turn up on time. I heard it constantly. At the Awards Awards, “They” are a different beast entirely, because They know the game. “Like everybody, they’re pissed off when they don’t win,” Claire said. Rory compared it to “cooking for a load of chefs”, though said “they are more forgiving than you might think”.
“I think they enjoy it,” Claire said. “I think it’s great just being on the other side of the fence . . . ”
At the end of the day (or even the middle), they are there to enjoy themselves. An awards event might be the only time in the year outside Christmas when guests spend time with their colleagues away from a clerical environment.
“Even our lunchtime ones can get very boozy,” Claire said. “One year we had those party buses, you know, with all the lights and everything to take people just across the bridge. The traffic was appalling . . . ”
Rory chipped in. “They were stuck on the bus for about an hour so they got absolutely hammered . . . ”
“They were so drunk . . . ”
“They fell off the bus . . . ”
“I think we called an ambulance for one of them.”
At 12.30, we all took our seats in the hangar and it was amazing to see Rory and Claire up there at the lecterns doing their opening address. They looked like televangelists on the big screens, with a smooth HD focus and crisp audio. They handed over to the TV comedian Laura Smyth who hosted the first half of the event. Laura introduced us to the day’s “voice of God” who spoke over the PA to read nominees.
“Did you recognise that voice?” Laura said. “He’s the original voice of Siri. That’s actually true. I had to Google it.”
It was Siri’s job to summarise the judges’ rationale as each winning team went up to collect their trophy. For every walk-up, a band of men in waistcoats clashed a cymbal and sang close-harmonised acoustic covers of the post-2008 pop canon. One had a banjo and another had a laptop to add some bass and punch to fill the hall. The winners had a vivacious, effortless swagger, like they’d been waiting for the moment all year. It was less busman’s holiday, more teachers’ race at school Sports Day. Frequent flyers breezing through security. The CDN People Awards (Best New Awards Event) threw peace signs and looked so Cannes.
Food was served between each bundle of awards. Starter was a colourful “allotment tart” of vegetables, flowers, curd and mushroom crumb. I read the Awards Awards assessment criteria. It gives precedence to strong judging panels, well-thought-out categories, innovation in the ceremony (even “novelty” where appropriate) and strong financial and attendance stats. But some awards just shimmer.
The True Crime Awards got the biggest “oohh” from the seated masses, and a smile from the back of the room where Nancy Baughen, its founder and organiser, was sitting. Nancy is a rising star in the awards world with bright red hair and a comprehensive true crime literacy.
“We’re quite a little fish in a big pond,” Nancy told me, explaining how she has to keep an eye on the Bafta and RTS schedules so as not to lose the major TV companies from her guest list. For Nancy and her team, the usual awards formula — “three-course dinner, clap clap clap, award award award, well done well done, everyone has a drink, everyone has a dance” — just doesn’t work. “The tone is wrong. You’ve got victim’s families, survivors, advocates,” she said. “This isn’t fiction. This is real life. That’s the hardest thing to do.”
Instead of a band or comedian, the True Crime Awards last year had a spoken-word artist who performed an original piece, mentioning all the shortlisted entries in verse. This year, the MP Jess Phillips came to the event to present an award to Nour Norris, a domestic violence campaigner whose sister and niece were murdered. The dress code is “wear whatever makes you feel comfortable.” Nancy said that lots of awards people are now turning to her event for inspiration.
Plus, of course, the Awards Awards.
“Claire’s got pressure, right,” Nancy said. “We’re coming to pick holes in it and we’re coming to nick ideas.” One of the big trends at the moment, which you’ll see at both the Awards Awards and the True Crime Awards, is no speeches. Winners get taken backstage with their trophy where they can speak as much as they like to a camera that later gets posted online. There’s nothing worse than an event dragging.
It’s also maybe safer that way. Awards ceremonies bring out the best and worst in people. It’s the intersection of incentive, ego, critique, anticipation and effort. Attendees are unpredictable and human; just like the judges, the organisers, the presenters. Claire forwarded me an email, heavily redacted, with a list of incidents from awards events over the years. There were once fights over heating and ventilation on the dance floor of the H&V News Awards. A well-known exec once “propositioned the comedian Jason Manford on stage” while announcing a winner, and started to “remove clothing”.
“In 2022, the Queen died mid-drinks reception of the Insurance Insider Honours at the Hilton on Park Lane. That was a nightmare,” the note said. “We had to rewrite the script, remove all the entertainment, remove the comedy, but we carried on, only about 30 guests left actually.”
After the main course (roasted lamb shoulder or spiced sweet potato cakes) Laura handed over to another comedian, Tom Davis, for the second half. The ice was melting in the buckets, and there were a few more gaps around the tables. I don’t think many of us really knew what time it was. Maybe around 3? It could’ve been quarter to midnight, or Vegas, or a big cruise. “We’re having a great eveni . . . ” I heard someone say, before correcting themselves. “I mean day!”
The two-host thing was a smart way to zap things into life and capture our attention again. It was an innovation from JJ Jackson, another of the awards industry’s top dogs, who was sitting right at the front of the Awards Awards with colleagues from his artiste agency. Tight silver curls, silver tongue, loud shirt, phone always busy. Tom Davis and Siri called him “the boss” and “the governor”, with Davis announcing to the crowd that JJ “always smells delicious”.
JJ has fixed the hosts and entertainment for this event since it began. He always warns his clients before they host the Awards Awards: “We’ve been running for quite a long time now, so trust me, every joke that can be done about it has been done.”
For the artistes on his books, the annual constellation of awards events can be a lifeline. If a comic needs to take time out to write their next show, they can appear at one-off “corporates” with seasoned material. “This is what pays the mortgage,” JJ said, “and possibly the school fees or the alimony or the rest of it.”
I loved talking to JJ about corporate awards over the decades and the way they’ve charted the times. In the ’80s, the UK imported Reaganite campaigning techniques from the US; those “big pizzazz congresses” with wide stages, slogans and screens. After that, he said, production values for UK corporate events of all kinds shot up.
In the ’90s, there was a boom in trade magazines that started hosting awards for their sectors. It was an optimistic business world, all self-improvement courses, slideshows, briefcases, company cars and wide ties. Claire recalled how “the CEO of Euromoney had a big board up in his office” — a corporate bucket list. “You had to have a magazine, a conference, a training course, a newsletter. All of a sudden, awards got added to that list.” There are a lot of 30th and 35th anniversaries in the awards world at the moment.
When television talent shows like X Factor started out, JJ said,“ we would have some clients do back-story videos for their nominees”. Now in the age of the influencer, a good awards event will have plenty of branded checkpoints for photos, and JJ said it’s also getting harder to find unifying comedians to host. The funny TikTokers often just don’t have the presenting skills and half the room wouldn’t recognise them.
The Dezeen Awards (for architects, super smart and beautifully designed) won Best Awards Event. Dezeen’s Wai and Claire were sitting near me and showed me a photo of them winning Best New Awards back in 2019. They brought an extra bottle of champagne back to share with the table.
Among us was Noel from the Insurance Investor European Awards, who said, “We were robbed! It’s rigged!” before looking around the table with a serene smile. “Everyone’s such a high standard. That’s why we’re all here.”
“It’s got a bit of a Bottomless Brunch appeal,” Tom Davis said from the stage, looking out over us all as he cycled through the last few categories. This was a crowd that had run down the bar tab and moved on to company cards. Any divisions between tables and sectors were dissolving away. Emails and screens could wait.
Indeed, there was something restorative about hearing the otherwise-flawless voice of Siri trip over a line. “Shall I say that again?” the OG AI assistant faltered over the God mic. “It’s got to that part of the afternoon.”
After the chocolate crémeux pudding, Wai and I were cornering the metal jugs of coffee, pouring our second and third, as proceedings were completed, the music dialled up and the party began.
I saw Awards Claire chatting to Nancy and Dezeen’s Claire and Wai near my empty seat.
“Hey, congrats everyone!”
“What an occasion.”
“You wouldn’t believe it’s broad daylight outside,” I said.
Nancy turned me 45 degrees away from the group and sort of whispered. “This event has to be during the day.”
“Oh yeah?”
“All year, awards people spend so many nights away from their families. I’ve just texted my husband. I said I’m gonna come home, we’re gonna go in the garden, have a barbecue and play Uno.”
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