INTRO: Can you describe your competition and award using only four words?
The Oscars for events.
Q1: What is the added value and purpose of best event award competitions?
A global competition such as Eventex Awards brings winners recognition on an international scale, along with a reputation boost. In essence, it is a third-party seal of approval. Participating alone creates exposure and generates positive publicity. All of these benefits help both winners and entrants attract new customers, partners, and sponsors, which, in turn, delivers a rise in revenue. And let’s not forget the benefits of an award for your team — it is an excellent boost to employee morale.
Q2: What differentiates your competition from others?
Eventex Awards is considered the world’s biggest competition of its kind. Case in point, for the 2023 edition, we saw a massive 761 entries from 49 countries, all vying for an Eventex award. We also pride ourselves in our transparency, not only in terms of clear-cut rules and criteria but also post-evaluation when we disclose everything, including jury comments and scores. That makes Eventex Awards more than a contest, with the valuable feedback delivered by a jury of top-notch event professionals transforming Eventex Awards into a learning opportunity for entrants.
Q3: What are the novelties of your competition in 2023?
The Eventex Awards 2024 edition, which is already underway, has gotten a category revamp, with one of the changes being a focus on venues, hotels, and destinations, which we believe will take centre stage, benefiting from the return of in-person events. We are also giving more prominence to agencies and teams to recognise and celebrate the hard work that goes alongside every successful event or experience. Our category revamp also reflects a greater joie de vivre, showcasing sports and tournaments, as well as private events and weddings within the bigger context of events.
Q4: How has the pandemic impacted your competition? What have event organisers learned from the pandemic?
If anything, the pandemic demonstrated the resilience and adaptability of the events and experience marketing industry. Eventex Awards saw a massive rise in virtual event formats, which prompted us to create a track dedicated to Virtual Events & Experiences to accommodate the surge. The pandemic further pushed event organisers toward innovation, while event tech companies also rose to the challenge with new apps and functionalities for virtual events.
“Some of the things that our jury looks for include stunning creativity and flawless execution, excellence in overcoming challenges, and presentation of convincing results.”
Q5: What do you consider most important when selecting the expert jury? What criteria do you follow?
The Eventex Awards jury is crucial to the success of our awards, so we take the utmost care in handpicking each member. We select professionals with extensive experience in the events industry who bring both expertise and innovation to the table, such as heads of convention bureaus, corporate event managers, and top industry influencers and journalists. We make that happen by subjecting each application to a thorough review to ensure that only the best and most respected professionals make our list.
Q6: How will you evaluate the projects? What is that X factor you look for in events? Do you have criteria for choosing a great event? What about a poor event?
We have a well-defined evaluation process that ensures objectivity. Some of the things that our jury looks for include stunning creativity and flawless execution, excellence in overcoming challenges, and presentation of convincing results, both qualitative and quantitative. Big budgets are not necessarily a factor but rather, it is what you have achieved with the resources at hand.
In practical terms, each entry is evaluated based on three criteria. They are slightly different for each track but generally cover things like concept, innovation and creativity, planning, as well as effectiveness and results. Every jury member gives a score from 1 to 10 on each of those criteria to every entry assigned to them, with any entry scoring 75 points or above getting awarded. We use awards management software Evalato to calculate the results, ensuring complete fairness.
Q7: Your competition evaluates the best events. Often, event competitions also asses venues, hotels and destinations. There are more advanced matrixes on the market compared to the biased opinion of the jury to evaluate them. There have been cases when a destination is evaluated by a jury member who sees the destination as competition. Thus, doubts often arise about the credibility and objectivity of such evaluations. What is your opinion on this topic?
We pride ourselves on the objectivity of our evaluation process and have taken multiple steps to ensure it, starting with our rigorous jury selection. We are also very careful when assigning entries to judges, taking measures to avoid any potential conflict of interest.
Then, each entry is evaluated by a minimum of 4 judges, while the software applies score normalisation during the calculation of the results — this is basically a mathematical formula that eliminates any judging bias, be it intentional or unintentional. Finally, our jury members are required to justify any grades of below 60 or above 90 points. While no process is 100% infallible, having these safeguards in place means that the Eventex Awards evaluation is as objective as possible.
Q8: How do you see the difference between live event competitions, where event agencies can personally meet jury members and virtual event competitions, taking place online?
While live event competitions do have their natural appeal, our experience with Eventex Awards has helped us see first-hand the advantages associated with virtual event competitions, which allow for events of a much larger scale and bigger inclusivity. As I noted above, Eventex Awards 2023 featured 761 entries from 49 countries — it would have been unfeasible to have everyone pitch in person, in front of an 80-strong jury panel, no less. So I would even go as far as saying that going virtual is one of the reasons for our exponential growth in the past few years.
Q9: What are your future steps and vision to develop the competition?
Every year, we revamp our categories as we anticipate industry trends, so we will keep doing that going forward as we look to remain at the forefront of the industry. We are also ramping up our efforts to produce valuable resources, including indices, reports, and industry research. Last but not least, we are working on more networking opportunities for our community, as we look to add more value to our awards.
Q10: What are your priorities to help create a carbon-neutral meetings industry? Can you illustrate with examples and initiatives implemented at your event competition?
While the industry should embrace sustainability, I think that pushing for carbon-neutral events just for the sake of it without considering all the implications could potentially backfire. Rather, it should happen more naturally as the industry adopts eco-friendly practices at its own pace. That said, we at Eventex Awards are doing our bit — being online, our competition is pretty much as green as it gets. We also have categories dedicated to green events, and we are happy to report that we have seen an overall rise in entries of circa 130% over the past year.
Q11: Can you name a pressing challenge the entire global meetings industry should tackle together?
Over the past year, AI has taken the world by storm. And while I believe that the event industry shouldn’t fall behind the times, we should implement AI very carefully to ensure that we reap the benefits of this technology without jeopardising the human connection that events and experiences are built on.
About Ovanes Ovanessian and Eventex Awards
Founded in 2009 to celebrate creativity, innovation, and effectiveness in the industry, today Eventex Awards is the most esteemed international accolade in the world of events and experiential marketing. Winning an Eventex award has become a true symbol of excellence and easily the most recognizable accolade in the event industry.
An entrepreneur and a visionary, Ovanes has been spearheading projects since 2008, with a focus on events and awards. He is the co-founder of Eventex Awards, the world’s leading awards for events and experience marketing, as well as next-gen awards management software Evalato. His out-of-the-box thinking infuses each of his projects with innovation, which Ovanes believes is the foundation great ventures are built on.
Learn more about Eventex Awards here.
