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Everything You Need to Know About Hosting an Awards Ceremony

Everything You Need to Know About Hosting an Awards Ceremony

Uncover our best-kept secrets about hosting an awards ceremony and organise your next event with confidence. 

Hosting an awards ceremony for your employees or team members is a great way to make them feel valued, seen, and appreciated. 

However, planning the ultimate event is no easy feat. With countless venues to choose from, a theme to pick, vendors to select and countless other challenges along the way, it’s not always easy to enjoy the process.

That’s where we come in. 

At Blackberry Events, we have over 25 years of experience in event planning and organisation. What’s more, we love helping our clients celebrate their teams’ achievements by planning unforgettable awards ceremonies.

That’s why we’ve put together this handy guide. We’ve rummaged through our bag of tools to include some to give you everything you need to know about planning and hosting an awards ceremony. 

What an Awards Ceremony Might Look Like and How Blackberry Events Can Make it Happen

If you’re new to the events planning biz, it can be a daunting place. With countless things to check off your list, it’s sometimes impossible to know where to start.

So, to make the planning process a little more palatable, we’ve divided our tips and tricks into 3 timelines:

  • Planning and preparing
  • On the day
  • After the day 

Hosting an Awards Ceremony: Planning and Preparing

Before you can enjoy your fabulous event, you need to actually plan it. Luckily for you, we’ve done the hard part and figured out how to plan an awards ceremony, and all you need to do is follow our simple steps, outlined below.

Time Management

  1. Create a Timeline

Having a visual representation of your available time will help you to divide it wisely. Include key deadlines, such as the main event, deposit due dates, and event planning meetings, to add structure and help you see tasks within the bigger picture. 

  1. Make a Daily To-Do List

At the beginning of each planning day, take time to write down your goals for the day. Having them in writing always seems to make goals more achievable. 

  1. Delegate

Hosting an awards ceremony is not for the faint-hearted, and it’s certainly not something you should be organising on your own. Share planning tasks between people to make goals more attainable and to avoid burnout. After all, what’s the point in planning an event if you’re too exhausted to enjoy the end result?

  1. Prioritise

Although many tasks are unavoidable in the planning process, sometimes, you just have to say no. If there are any non-essential things you can remove from your workload, do it. 

  1. Use Award Ceremony Event Management Apps

If you struggle to keep yourself accountable, try enlisting the help of digital award ceremony event management aids. Apps like Cvent, Eventbrite, and Whova often have built-in checklists and task management systems to help you optimise your time. 

  1. Enlist the Help of a Pro

No one knows the trials and tribulations of event planning like a professional award ceremony planner. If you’re struggling to manage your time and are concerned you won’t be able to pull it off alone, there’s no shame in asking for help.

Budget Management

  1. Get Back to Basics

Before you even think about spending a penny, you need to establish the following things:

  • Event type: i.e. is it in-person or online? Is it based around a meal? What kind of technology do you require? 
  • Number of attendees: how many people are you inviting? This impacts the scale of your budget throughout the project.
  • End goals: how will you define the success of the event? Will it be by donations, ticket sales, or something else?

  1. Find the Funding

To create a watertight budget, you need to clearly define where the money for the event is coming from, and how much of it you’ll have. Estimate your income by calculating ticket sales, any existing funds set aside for the event, donations, and more. 

  1. Create Clear Categories

Within your budget, you should have sections dedicated to the various cost types. For example, you’ll need separate sections for:

  • Venue hire
  • Catering
  • Staffing
  • Travel and transportation
  • Entertainment
  • Technology
  • Contingency fund for unexpected costs (trust us, they always arise!)

  1. Track Your Costs

At the beginning of the process, create a spreadsheet or use a budget tracking app to compare your predicted costs with your actual costs. 

Having a real-time comparison of the two will help you to have a holistic view of your spending and give you the best chance of coming in within budget.

Exploring the Best Award Ceremony Venues

Think of your venue as the crux of your event; it can make or break your big event. Award ceremony venues directly impact every element of your event, including first impressions, accessibility, transport and budget. To find your dream awards ceremony venue, follow our tried and tested steps:

  1. Define Your Needs

You need a venue that suits the style and size of your event. 

Among other things, it needs to have the capacity for your guest list size, the right layout for your evening’s plans and needs to be in a location suitable for guests and caterers to travel to. 

  1. Decide On Your Venue Budget

Decide how much of your overall budget can be put towards the venue. Make sure you factor in all costs associated with the venue, including:

  • Venue hire
  • Cleaning
  • Transportation to and from the venue
  • Security
  • Overtime charges

  1. Visit venues

As we all know, everything is not always as it seems online. If you want to get a real feel for a venue, the best thing you can do is visit your top three venue choices in person before making a decision. 

Sourcing and Managing Vendors

  1. Do Your Research

Before settling on a vendor, it’s important to know who you’re getting into bed with. Here’s what you need to do:

  • Take a look at their past projects: does their work align with your event and vision?
  • Scour the net for reviews and testimonials: have previous clients been happy with their services?
  • Investigate their costs: can your budget accommodate them?

  1. Communicate Openly

When scouting vendors for your awards ceremony, it’s important to be upfront about your needs and expectations from the get-go. This will help rule out any unworthy candidates and help the right ones to shine.

  1. Use Multiple Channels

When sourcing a vendor, it’s important to think outside the box. Instead of just typing in ‘local vendors near me’ in Google, consider other methods for finding the right choice, such as:

  • Networking channels
  • Colleague recommendations
  • Word of mouth

  1. Compartmentalise

If you’re hosting an awards ceremony, you’ll likely be enlisting the services of multiple vendors. To keep on top of your various vendor collaborations, make sure you keep distinct notes and plans for each one. 

Possible vendor categories include:

  • Caterers
  • Florists
  • Technology hire companies
  • Photographers
  • Interior designers

Manage Invites and Guest List

What’s an awards ceremony without any attendees? One of the most important things to keep on top of during the event’s planning process is your guest list, and here’s how you can do it:

  1. Invite the Right Number of People

Although this may seem obvious, a lot of people fail at this first hurdle. 

Depending on the event, not all invitees will be able to attend. So, if you want to reach a specific number of guests, consider overreaching with the number of invites to account for those who won’t come. 

  1. Send Out Invites in Advance

To give yourself the best chance of hosting a showstopping event and ensure your guests can attend, make sure your invites are sent out in advance. In general, we recommend sending them out at least 2-3 months before the big day.

  1. Track Your RSVPs

Keep track of RSVPs by creating an Excel spreadsheet of your guest list. Not only will this enable you to stay on top of numbers for the big day, but it also gives you the chance to make note of guests’ reasons for absence, in case your manager or client needs to know.

Hosting an Awards Ceremony: On the Day

  1. Set Up in Advance

To keep your hosting duties as seamless as possible, make sure your venue is set up well in advance of the guest’s arrival time. Keep an eye on your timeline to ensure each of your vendors arrives and sets up on time. 

Leaving excess time will help you account for any unforeseen issues, like missing chairs or technological mishaps. 

  1. Run Rehearsals


If any elements within your ceremony could go wrong, make sure you run through them first. Whether your speaker needs to know where to stand, or you need to coordinate your music with your lighting, a quick run-through of things on the day will set you in good stead for the real thing. 

  1. Prepare Your Staff

One of the best ways to ensure a successful event is to welcome your staff members with clear instructions. If servers need to be in a specific place at a specific time, let them know. 

During the event, make yourself available to staff members in case they have any questions to help streamline the evening. 

  1. Enjoy Yourself

Once your event has begun, give yourself a pat on the back and relish in the knowledge that the worst is over. You did it! Although there will still be plenty of things to keep an eye on, try your best to relax and watch your hard work pay off. 

Hosting an Awards Ceremony: After the Day

  1. Ensure a Seamless Exit

Before you go, you need to make sure you leave the venue exactly as you found it, within the venue’s time regulations. 

This includes:

  • The safe exit of all guests
  • Removal of furniture and props
  • Loading out of vendors and their equipment
  • Cleaning the venue (if required – some venues include post-event cleaning in their services)

  1. Pay Your Dues

If there are any outstanding balances to your vendors, venue, or staff, make sure you don’t forget to pay them. Thanking everyone for their hard work can also go a long way.

  1. Gather Feedback

Reach out to your client or attendees for their honest review of the event. This will not only make them feel valued, but it will also give you insight into what you did well, and what you can improve for your next event. 

  1. Evaluate the Event

Finally, it’s important to evaluate the success of the event. If you planned the awards ceremony as part of a team, make sure you have a debriefing meeting to discuss the event and any available feedback together. 

Plan Your Dream Awards Ceremony with Blackberry Events

Hopefully, this blog gave you a flavour of what’s required to plan a successful awards ceremony. But if you’re still feeling overwhelmed, don’t hesitate to reach out to an expert. 

For over 25 years, we have collaborated with clients to plan and execute unforgettable events that exceed their expectations, and you could be next. 


As you can see, hosting an awards ceremony is anything but simple, and a little help from our expert team could go a long way in making your experience as smooth as possible. 

We know how important and highly anticipated awards ceremonies are, and we love the challenge that every one of these event briefs brings. 

So, if you’re looking for a team to bring your vision to life with expertise, you’ve come to the right place. 

Contact our lovely team today to find out more about our awards ceremony planning services.

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