Preferred Award Type?

[Tsu!]

Hi all,

Akin to Rider's thread, I wanted to sort of poll editor-folk. While the GCs are definitely set for this year at the Fanime AMV Competition I've taken over, I got to wondering. What kind of awards do you all prefer? Money or giftcards? Trophies, plaques, medals? Completely unique items like AX's chair, Sakuracon's slate board or NDK's Asukas?

I really have no idea what people prefer. Personally, I like mementos. Anything that can be kept to remember an achievement and experience by is pretty rad in my book.

[GloryQuestor]

Personally, I happen to like smaller awards. They look nice and can usually fit on a shelf or be tacked to a wall.

A bit of practical advice learned through bitter experience, though:

The main drawback to large-size and statuesque awards is the much higher shipping costs involved. Conventions looking to save money will balk at the price to ship things out, leaving it in the hands of the coordinator to pay for all those costs. Most of us find ways to get the awards to winners when we visit them later -- for example, I waited a while before getting my Youma BIS trophy & Upbeat plaque awards from ngsilver at AWA many years ago, simply because both fairly large and would have all been on his dime to ship to me. Yet other contest coordinators and conventions are still sitting on their awards, mostly because the convention needs to preserve its bottom line (or provide the money to other departments it deems more necessary) over providing the funding for shipping out AMV awards.

So, if you are considering large or unique awards, just be sure to secure a budget for them before you commit and make sure that the convention leaders don't bail when you tell them how much it will be to ship them.

[Rider4Z]

I don't prefer plaques because they require putting a hole in my wall, and just leaning them looks lazy.

I prefer unique awards/trophies, nothing too large so as to save on shelf space. One of my favorite awards is my Creator's Choice from AX 2009. it's a resin trophy with a dark blue back so the text and imagery stand out, as opposed to my other crystal clear ones which require a close look to know what it's for. I also really like my AWA trophy from two years ago, it's small but has a unique shape and is very light.

I offer a self-painted portrait of (my) Coordinator's Choice for Conji. That went over really well last year.

[BasharOfTheAges]

I really like receiving unique stuff - I've been entering some contests for that very reason.

As a contest coordinator at a con that loves AMVs enough to give me a dedicated room to run and a trophy budget about 5x what I'd expect for a convention our size, we give out some impressive stuff... some of it impressively large. Our Best in Show trophy, for example, costs us more to ship DOMESTICALLY than the entire budget I had for trophies at a different contest I ran. I appreciate the 4 or 5 years we were able to award it in person.

[Vlad G Pohnert]

I like the unique stuff too.. I use to have my awards at my desk but after a while I made a full sized glass shelf unit just to house them...

Vlad

[Tsu!]

If you are considering large or unique awards, just be sure to secure a budget for them before you commit and make sure that the convention leaders don't bail when you tell them how much it will be to ship them.

Thanks GloryQuestor! I will definitely keep this in mind in the future. I'm reluctant to do heavy types of awards for this very reason.

I'm getting that the general consensus is: physical mementos of winning is better, and it's even better if they're fairly unique. Thanks folks!