AV Awards 2008
Click here to view the shortlist
The 2008 ‘edition’ will be the tenth in the series of AV Awards which started at The Café Royal in 1999. Since then the a-v industry has gone through a series of changes. It’s not unrecognisable, but it has expanded both territorially and in terms of the technology it embraces.
With that in mind, we have chosen to celebrate the AV Awards tenth anniversary by making some radical changes to the awards categories. Many of the old favourites – including the top awards for UK companies and project awards that recognise the end user as well as the a-v companies concerned – continue. But in order to make the awards process manageable and make sure that everyone in the room on October 10, when this year’s awards are to be given out, some categories have had to give.
There are two completely new categories of award this year, both of which are equally important. The first, alphabetically at least, are the AV Europe awards.
Recognising the fact that the European a-v sector is coming of age and companies are beginning to look beyond their own borders, we have decided to launch Europe-wide categories that aim to recognise European manufacturers of a-v systems, European live events, European systems companies and European digital signage projects. The only restriction on entries is that the companies must be based, or the projects must have been held, within the EMEA region.
The second new category is the AV Innovation Awards. These awards are specifically for new system, display, audio and digital signage products. We have introduced them in order to recognise the role of new technology in developing new a-v markets and to highlight the vital role that new product development plays in this market. Once again, the category definitions and entry requirements are detailed on the following pages.
Of course, there’s nothing to stop a UK-based manufacturer entering both the national and international award categories. And there’s nothing to stop any manufacturer or developer anywhere in EMEA entering the innovation awards. But by expressly given awards for European companies and for European products we hope to broaden the awards’ appeal and make them more apposite to the new markets we are dealing with.
Some things, however, will not change. We are determined to make sure that the AV Awards are as independently judged as ever and that winning an AV award will be a real achievement, both now and in the future. To that end, we will still be convening secret-voting panels of users, industry figures and industry commentators. AV Magazine will continue to chair the judging panels, but not vote, and the bar on sponsors judging any categories or entering the category that they have sponsored remains in place. If anything, we will be policing those areas of debate more actively than ever before. That way, everybody wins.
Peter Lloyd
Editor, AV Magazine
