How to host a truly celebratory awards dinner

With so many awards in existence these days, organising an event that wows your guests and leaves a lasting impression requires thinking outside the box.

From location to food, entertainment to styling, here is everything you need to consider when it comes to hosting a truly celebratory awards dinner.

Location

Award ceremonies often attract a vast range of guests from various locations, therefore choosing a central location to hold your event can be integral to its success.

Close proximity to major roads, rail, underground stations, buses, and even airports should be well considered as well as accommodation with varying price brackets can also be key to selling tickets.

Make life easy for your guests to ensure they make the effort to attend.

Space

The right space within a venue for your award ceremony is probably one of the most important things to consider.

Choose an iconic room that helps bring the event to life and convey the glamour, grandeur and celebratory feeling you are looking for. 

Our Riverside Room’s superb views never fail to add a sense of occasion to an awards evening as guests watch the London skyline twinkle from the room’s private balcony.

AV

As content now plays such an important role in events, high-quality AV is a must for creating a magical award ceremony. Make sure you choose a venue whose AV will help take your event to the next level.

For example, we’ve recently invested £280k into the AV offering in the Riverside Room, our largest flat floor space, further enhancing our award ceremony offering, with new cameras installed to allow presenters to be filmed from any angle and live relayed onto video walls and screens for full visibility.

New cutting-edge video mapping software has also been installed to compose and manage multiple content across the screens so any awards ceremony, no matter how big or small, will feel like the Oscars.

And, enhancements to the audio system allow for different sounds in different zones within the building, including on the roof terrace, ensuring it will be a celebratory night to remember.

Catering

Guests expect to be fed and watered well at award ceremonies.

The catering you choose could be anything from a three-course sit-down banquet to bowl food or interactive food stalls, but ultimately something that wows your audience.

Our formal three-course dinner or lunches are always a popular choice for award ceremonies.

Starters include dishes such as slow-cooked duck breast or roasted pepper carpaccio. Mains include guinea fowl ballotine or pan-seared cod loin and puddings include white chocolate cheesecake or warm apple and rhubarb crumble tart.

Entertainment

Entertainment is always the icing on the cake at award dinners. From the compère during the ceremony to the music or band afterwards, it’s important to choose something that resonates with the audience.

Magicians and acrobatic performers can be a great choice for keeping guests entertained at awards ceremonies and tend to suit most age groups too.

If budget isn’t an issue celebrity names are good compère choices and can help to sell tickets and attract more interest in the event.