Date: 14 December 2020
Organised by: The British Travel Awards team
Audience: Travel industry insiders
Attendees: approx. 500
https://www.britishtravelawards.com

The entire travel industry has been badly hit by Covid and consequently two of the largest travel trade awards were cancelled in 2020, leaving just the British Travel Awards (BTA) to bravely go ahead with their event in a radically different format from ever before.

For Lorraine Barnes Burton, managing director of the BTA it was a steep learning curve, but fortunately she’s happy to report that Evessio supported her every step of the way.

With no clear idea at all as to how to pivot the annual gala awards ceremony to an online event, Lorraine had an initial zoom call with Tom at Evessio to explore the concept of the Awards Room. Evessio described how the Awards Room platform works, from the sponsorship opportunities to registration of the guests, and explained to Lorraine precisely what elements of the ceremony it would be responsible for – an enormous help which left Lorraine free to focus on the parts of the evening she would normally take care of. For added reassurance the Awards Room had a dedicated account handler to respond to each and any of Lorraine’s queries throughout the process.

In the initial stages, the Awards Room used the BTA database to send invites to the guests, passing on the data to the BTA as people signed up. The outstanding customer service from the Awards Room extended to anticipating potential problems and addressing them before they could become significant issues. One example is that only attendees with the same domain name could be seated together, so the Awards Room ensured guests were aware of this and registered their emails accordingly.

Another example of the Awards Room team’s foresight meant that they worked with the BTA production team in advance to ensure a high-quality broadband speed was available from the venue for uploading the live film that would be required at the ceremony.

The Awards Room team also advised on where to ‘seat’ the different categories of guests. As an online event, the BTA decided to open the event out to the public for the first time through their media partners, the Mirror Group. The Awards Room suggested ‘seating’ guests without a company email address in the pubic gallery where they could watch the ceremony with the chat functionality disabled. Bringing the event to a larger audience with transparency around the results of the public vote was a huge success, and something that the BTA will look to roll out at future events.

The Awards Room also helped guests understand how the event would run and how they could maximise the networking opportunities open to them. During the early planning stages, Lorraine suggested a video link was sent to guests advising them on how to use the chat room at the ceremony. Evessio incorporated this suggestion and the open dialogue between both parties means that Lorraine’s first-time user feedback has allowed the Awards Room to evolve, making the platform even more user-friendly.

The event took place just after lunch in early December, during the second UK Covid lockdown. Registrations opened at 1pm, giving attendees the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the platform, engage with the sponsors and network amongst themselves before the ceremony began properly at 2pm. The ceremony moved seamlessly between live and pre-recorded sections, hosted live by Alex Jones from the BBC’s One Show at Boisdale in central London. For guests, the experience was akin to watching a TV show, and the Awards Room ensured the experience was just as easy for guests attending a virtual event for the first time as it was for the organisers. A dedicated person from the Awards Room was available throughout respond to any of the guests queries or issue that arose at any time.

The top three winners (gold, silver and bronze) sent pre-recorded acceptance videos which were uploaded and patched into the live ceremony. These were a mixture of professional and homespun-zoom quality, but all were engaging and amusing for attendees at the ceremony to watch.

A live Twitter feed kept guests engaged throughout the ceremony creating the opportunity for interaction. Guests also dressed up for the occasion, despite the majority being based at home. Trophies were sent out to the winners the day after the ceremony.

Lasting just one hour in length, the awards were far shorter than in previous years, but a good length for a virtual ceremony, and the platform remained live for about half an hour afterwards to give guests a further opportunity to network. The ceremony was tightly scripted, polished and professional in quality, despite the organisers having little idea of what to expect in advance of the event. Feedback from the event reflected the high quality, an in particular, how “slick” it was.

The success of the BTA event has led them to seriously consider hosting a hybrid event in future years. After the BTA award ceremony the Awards Room provided the BTA with data on who chatted to who, for how long and also who watched the promotional material from which sponsor. The advantages are clear: more guests can attend from further afield, and significantly, the amount of data available to the event organisers and their sponsors means that business development opportunities are magnified.