Silly (sausage) season
One of the best things about working at AwardStage (apart from our awesome clients and incredible colleagues, obvs) is that we get to see first hand the phenomenal variety of awards that are out there. From illustrious to light-hearted, global to gloriously obscure, there is an award to celebrate every endeavour and exploit, no matter how niche. Here’s a handful of our faves:
UK Sausage Week Awards
Here at Team AwardStage, we are somewhat partial to a sausage, so we have a particular weakness for these awards (and we would relish the opportunity to be a judge, should an opening ever come up…) As the culmination of UK Sausage Week, these awards celebrate the best bangers from across Britain, with categories including best traditional sausage, best gluten free sausage, and best cocktail sausage - we’ll be sampling the lot, to be honest.
Ig Nobel Prizes
Now in their 35th year, the Ig Nobel Prizes recognise offbeat research that ‘makes people laugh, and then makes people think’. We're talking about scientific studies into why dry pasta breaks into more than two pieces, the optimal way to carry a coffee cup without spilling it, or why London taxi drivers have bigger brains than others. While they are widely known as the ‘silly’ science awards, the intention is to ‘celebrate the unusual, honour the imaginative’ and, by doing so, spark people’s interest in science, technology and medicine.?
TreeHugging World Championships
If you’re feeling disconnected from nature, take a leaf out of the treehugger’s book and head over to Finland for the TreeHugging World Championships. Combining warmhearted fun with the benefits of connecting with nature, the event takes place in the picturesque HaliPuu forest - and there’s an online photo competition for those who can’t make it over there.
Not as mean as it sounds, this award celebrates the unique appeal of every pooch, warts and all. Far from making fun of ‘ugly’ dogs, the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest is all about the unconditional love that dogs of all shapes, sizes and looks bring to our lives. The competition, which has been running at the Sonoma County Fair in California for nearly 50 years, also promotes the importance of adoption, which for us makes it an all-round pawsome contest.
Photograph: Wild Thang, the 2024 winner of the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest.
Copyright Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds & Event Center
If you’re running an award - big or small, international or niche - and would like to find out how AwardStage can help, drop us a line or book a demo - we’d love to chat to you!
