Irish Web Awards

Photos from Saturday from the folks at Entertainment.ie are here.

Our own photos are on the way quite soon.

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!

Thanks to Keith Bohanna for the photo:

Best Online Publication – sponsored by Red Cardinal
Irish Times

Best Radio Website – sponsored by IGOPeople
Phantom FM

Best Podcaster – sponsored by Irish Mortgage Brokers
Playlist Mix

Best Videocaster – sponsored by eType Ireland
RTE

Best Sports Site – sponsored by Spinnakerpro.com
munsterfans.com

Best Music Site – sponsored by UMusic.ie
State Magazine

Best Entertainment Website – sponsored by Sensorpro.net
Entertainment.ie

Best Technology Site – sponsored by BH Consulting
Silicon Republic

Best New Web Application/Service – sponsored by InterTradeIreland’s SeedCorn
Poll Daddy

Most Innovative Website – sponsored by iQ content
Pixenate

Best Discussion forum – sponsored by Brand Ignite
Boards.ie

Best Government Website – sponsored by Interactive Return
Aras Kids

Best Council Website – sponsored by Peter Donegan Landscaping Ltd
Dublin.ie

Best Third Level Website – sponsored by the Irish Computer Society
Access NUI Maynooth

Best Education website –
FIS Book Club

Best eCommerce / Services Website – sponsored by Cybercom
Spicendipity

An Suíomh Gaeilge is Fear – sponsored by Edgecast Media
Focal.ie

Best Practice – sponsored by Lightbox
Pix.ie

Most Beautiful Website in Ireland – sponsored by Beaut.ie
Twitterfone

Most Useful Website in Ireland – sponsored by DoneDeal.ie
Irish Times

Most Accessible Website – sponsored by iQ content
Kanchi

Grand Prix
Best Website – sponsored by Moviestar.ie
Boards.ie

For those that want to livevideo the Awards using QIK the group for the Moviestar.ie Irish Web Awards is here.

For those wishing to upload photos to Flickr or Pix.ie, the tag to use is IWA08, the same goes for Twitter.

If none of the above makes sense to you, congratulations, you’re not addicted to the Internet!

Many want to know if they can get net access at the Web Awards. At registration tomorrow, ask for a voucher and you’ll have access to the hotel’s wifi. You have to then log onto the gateway and type in a password and you can get access to the Net after that.

Thanks to some last minute interventions by the badboy of Irish Landscaping, Peter Donegan, two companies have come forward to sponsor the drinks reception that will be held before the Awards ceremony on Saturday.

Thanks to Atfar Construction:

and Priority Engineering:

Yes, we’re sell outs but not in that way. With a week and a bit to go, the good news is we’ve allocated all our tickets for the evening. Hooray! Yet there are still tickets available, a very limited few, as we know from experience last minute real life issues stop some people from going and so there will be spare seats. We’re going to predict 10% nonshows.

So there are 30 tickets left for those people that still want to come along. Hurry now

In case you missed the email, here’s the lowdown on the evening:

Thank you for registering for the Irish Web Awards which takes place on October 11th in the Radisson SAS Hotel on Golden Lane (the one behind Dublin Castle). You can keep up to date with the Awards via our blog: http://awards.ie/webawards Yes, this is a mass email, apologies for the lack of personalisation.

This is the first year of the Web Awards and we’re delighted with the feedback from people so far. It already looks like we have a sold-out show. Doors open at 7pm and you can pay at the door and we’ll check your name against the list of those that signed up. There’s a drinks reception for everyone until 8pm and the bar is open until the Awards presentation starts.

Rick O’Shea will take to the stage at 8pm sharp and will go on until perhaps 10pm depending on how long the speeches are. Yes! There are speeches. We like speeches whether prepared or bumbled through and those that are getting a piece of glass for their hard work should be given the opportunity to say thank you to everyone too. You can read a poem or sing a song too, once it’s two verses at most.

After the Awards presentations we’ll have some food outside for everyone and we have a DJ and bar extension until 2am. For those that think they’re talented at designing sites and look good on the dance floor then you’ll be able to prove it on the night. And relive it forever when your friends upload the pics to Facebook.

The event is theatre style, meaning no tables, just seats and it is informal too so come along in a tux if you like but you’ll be one of very few. The aim of the evening is to celebrate the whole of the Irish Web Community and clap that bit extra for the winners. We encourage everyone to meet as many new faces as they can and network until your head explodes with all the names you’ll never remember. Yes, you can bring banners and pretend you’re on Winning Streak. No, Rick is not at all like Derek Mooney.

We’ve done our best to make the judging of the Awards fair and transparent after getting as much feedback as we can from the Web Community and this event is for you, not to boost the coffers of an organisation or a business. If it works out on the night we hope to make this an annual event. Best of luck to all those shortlisted.

See you on the night!

Damien on behalf of all those working hard behind the scenes.

There’s one category sponsorship slot left for the Moviestar.ie Web Awards now and that’s Best Council Website. Many people and companies have been offering to sponsor and as we’ve said before, if you want to support the Web Awards, come along on the night and meet everyone and have fun and spread the word about the Awards. Adding a logo to your website would be great too.

There are a few additional slots now open though for the Awards:

• There are two sponsorship slots for the drinks reception
• There is sponsorship of the DJ
• There are two other slots

This is what sponsors get. If you are interested in being a sponsor then email contact < at > awards.ie