Rick O’Shea needs thanking because he made the Web Awards a fun night out with many people who became friends from the gathering. It was far from MCing he did, he brought warmth, depth and other th ending words to the show. It’s obvious from the Blog Awards and the Web Awards that Rick loves to be friends with a crowd and not just announce winners to a bunch of people and get the hell out of the place as soon as possible. Rick, we love you. If you want an event to be fun then Rick is your man. Hire him, do, do!
Sponsors:
Moviestar.ie, the backers of the Irish Web Awards and a bunch of people that were a pleasure to work with. It was a case not of “We want this from you because we gave you money” but a case of “Ok, what can we do, is there more we can do?” The way we were treated was fantastic.
The same goes for every other sponsor this year. Between them and Moviestar.ie, they made sure this event happened, that we could afford a fantastic venue, buy a few drinks for everyone, feed them quality food, hand out beautiful trophies and enjoy sugarific cupcakes.
The helpers, the volunteers, the mighty Web Awards armyfamily:
Thanks to Alexia Golez for coming up with the tagline “Fall in Love with the Web Again” and a logo mashup that ended up on cupcakes, thanks to John Williams who did the videos that worked perfectly when the battery didn’t, thanks to John Blackbourn the amazing Webawards dev guy, thanks to Steven Day for being a bodyguard and pointman throughout the event, thanks to Ryan Whalley for being da bomb when it comes to photos, Darragh for looking after the sponsors during the evening,
blank line to catch breath
thanks to the music maestro and the man with the best t-shirt of the night – Brian Greene for being brilliant oh and VOTE for him in the local elections, thanks to Sinéad Keogh for helping out in the build up to the event and on the night, thanks to Jonathan for helping out too, Stephen Boyce too, thanks to Alan O’Rourke for doing the logo, thanks to Laura and Elly for refusing Northern Bank Notes and 3 Euros notes while on the door and having cheques directed to rest in our personal accounts, thanks too to Ciara from Find a Conference Venue who suggested the Radisson as the venue and thanks to Rebecca Whitehead who organised everything on the Radisson side.
Thanks to all those we forgot to thank too both last night and in this post. We’ll update it later when our brains get back to normal. (30 seconds after pressing publish we add more people we forgot!)
Judges
Thanks to a massive team of voluntary judges that we asked a lot of, possibly too much.
The surprises
Thanks to Fran Hollywood (yes it is his real name) from MadeInHollywood for creating the big huge 4 foot by 6 foot Ws and the dozens of mini Ws. Reports of giant Ws in taxis and being walked down streets today was hilarious. Big up to David Behan for suggesting Made in Hollywood chat to us. Thanks to Carol from Dublin Cupcakes for making the cupcakes and adding the logo to them.
Most importantly
Thanks to the Irish Web Community for doing what they do. For giving feedback on what categories to choose, for what should be in the scorecards, for nominating, judging and further judging the websites and for just being brilliant. For wanting to be the best, for wanting to see the best and for encouraging and helping each other to become the best. You all rock!
It was a brilliant night, really really great fun. From the cupcakes to the MCing to the participants, well done everyone. I got home at about 4am, I think that says it all, a brilliant night and I have a list of new websites to check out.
Still recovering from a great night… Thanks to everyone involved.
Vincent
Movies.ie
[...] Update: State, Alexia, Richard, Ken and me. [...]
Great event! Thanks!
Great night folks, and lovely to meet you all!
Brilliant night out that I really needed! Thanks so much for organising it Damien.
One last thing – Next time, if I’m on the door I’m bringing my own laptop – it’ll be way easier to just stick the Excel on that and search for the names!
[...] here. (Greedy ain’t he?)’ [rofl?!!], Keith’s post here, State, Alexia, Richard, Ken and me. David D. John Williams. Jennifer (Get well!) and Irish Times print coverage. .gallery { margin: [...]
Giant ‘W’ for sale, original prop for the very first IWA08 Original, PMO must be seen…! Only joking it’s priceless… great event cheers Damien!
Great night Damian, we really enjoyed it!
Looking forward to next year
I heartily endorse this product or service. Always great to put faces to names, and discover the sheer wealth of talent and goodwill in the Web community. Kudos.
Well Damien, as you know I have been to all 4 of your gigs and I have to say Saturday night was amazing, with each event you bring something new to it, yet keep the same informality on the night, which works an absolute dream!
Thanks so much for allowing me to help out in a small way, it was once again a pleasure!
Cant wait for Cork now!
Brilliant night as ever. Kudos to Damien and all involved. Shame I had to run off – I was having WAAAAAY too much fun….
I agree with everyone else. It was a really special and fun night out – a big two fingers to the gloom mongers of the present times. Can’t wait for Cork. Thanks to all the organisers especially Damien.
Thanks for the praise Damien, from our point of view we are delighted we could help out!
Well done on creating a fantastic night, it was great to see and meet so many talented people.
Congratulations to all the nominees and winners, and well done to all involved in putting it all together.
Thanks for a brilliant night Damien and all. All the team had a great time.
Sorry I didn’t make it on the night (my “date” let me down and I have no head for directions!) but it was great helping out and I hope to get my hands on one of those awards before I’m 30, so watch out!
Loving the pictures and congratulations to the winners!
We took one of the Ws back to our studio with us!
http://blog.muzu.tv/2008/10/13/m-for-muzu-w-for-web/
Damien, thanks for the plug and glad to hear the event went well. I’m also pleased to see that the “W”’s & “M” ’s (don’t remember doing any of them) are being recycled responsibly.