New Awards Format for 2009

Hi All, well it’s been a little while coming but I’m pleased to finally be able to announce the plans for the BIMA Awards 2009.

This year the BIMAs are changing for the better. We know it’s a tough environment out there at the moment and that any investment in an event such as this needs to be clearly justifiable. Therefore this year we have set ourselves three simple tasks: To make the event more:

• Inclusive
• Transparent and Impartial
• Affordable and Fun!

We propose to achieve this as follows:

Making Them Inclusive
We feel strongly that BIMA represents and supports the whole of the interactive community therefore this year the awards will be firmly focussed on interactive media and there will be more categories representing the entire spectrum of the Industry.

The current list of categories will be published next week for the BIMA community to comment on.

Making Them Transparent and Impartial
This year we are changing the judging a little to make it more transparent and thereby enable BIMA to use the awards as a vehicle to achieve part of their remit to provide insight, knowledge and fundamentally support the industry by helping it to learn.

As per last year there will be two rounds of judging, one offline and one in person but other than that there will be a few changes:

• The judging guidelines will be improved to ensure greater consistency of scoring.
• Scores will be monitored for inconsistancy and addressed.
• Judges will be required to justify their score in 120 chars.
• These justifications and scores will be fed back to the entrants after the awards, thereby providing useful feedback and simultaneously encouraging responsible, impartial scoring.

The Judges will also be announced next week.

Making Them Affordable and Fun!
This year we have completely revamped the event. The focus will be on creating a fun and entertaining networking event which people will want to attend rather than just feel that they have to. It will be much, much cheaper to attend. There won’t be a sit-down dinner, anyone in black-tie will be turned away (well maybe not… but certainly laughed at!), the show will feature a comedian, a band and DJs ’til late, oh, and a new and improved awards show, details of which will be released shortly. It’s gonna be great, looking forward to seeing you there!

The event will be in mid November, we hope to announce the exact date in the next couple of weeks.

Working Event Timetable

Preliminary categories announced:  Next week
Judges announced: Beginning of the week following
Site up and open to entries: 22nd June
Entries close: 31st July
Judging round one (internet): 24th August – 7th Sept
Second round Judging Day: 24th Sept
Shortlist announced: 1st Oct
Event: Mid November (Probably the 19th)