Our awards have been free to enter since launching them back in 2019. But as entries have grown in volume and the process has become more of a burden to administrate, we made the decision last year to invest in software that would help us manage entries, ticketing, judging and the Summits all in one place.
This was the right decision for us and saved many precious hours. Rather than copying and pasting entries into documents that were tricky to navigate and track for the judges, we were able to filter and bundle them up in just a few clicks. Many of you praised the new system as being far easier to navigate and save progress across entries, and the judges were impressed with the simplicity of the marking and feedback process.
However, this did come at a cost. Our Podcast Awards in June just about broke even, and we made a loss on the Newsletter Awards almost to the tune of the cost of the software.
Clearly, we can’t continue to run events at a loss. Putting on events in central London is expensive – more so in the last few years – and there aren’t any costs we’re easily able to cut.
Here are the options we’ve considered:
Increase ticket prices: Tickets for both Awards are currently priced at £99. We run early bird and group discounts as we want publishers to be able to send as many of the team/s involved as possible, and also have an SMB scheme for those struggling with costs.
We’ve carefully built a fun, informal vibe to each Awards. There are no three-course sit-down meals, but the bowl food will always taste amazing. Everyone gets free drinks (including soft) and you’re able to move around the room and sit wherever you want, which helps foster genuine connections with other professionals.
We could formalise each Awards, move to a hotel ballroom, make it a fancy dinner and quadruple the ticket prices. But this goes against everything we’re trying to work for: a fun celebration of your best work in podcasts and newsletters, no matter what size publisher you are. So the ticket prices are staying the same.
Get more sponsorship: This would be an easy option, just a few more sponsors would really help to ease the budget restraints. But, being honest here, we’re a small, part-time team. We do well to get what sponsors we have in a tough market where we have just a few hours a month to dedicate to outreach.
We also have to work to secure sponsorship across the Media Voices portfolio, including the podcast and newsletter seasons, and the reports we do. More sponsorship revenue is something we’d love, but in today’s tough market and with the resources we have, it’s not a goal we can guarantee.
(If you’d like to sponsor, please drop peter@voices.media a line for our info pack.)
Put an entry fee on: Our Podcast and Newsletter Awards stand out as being one of a small group that are free to enter. This is something we’ve maintained since our days of working on the British Media Awards, as we saw how it encouraged small and indie publishers to enter. We’ve seen some incredible entries from titles we know wouldn’t have entered had we put a fee on.
However, being free has also meant we’ve attracted a fair amount of spam and entries from people who are most definitely not publishers who are ‘chancing it’. These take time to go through and verify, which is time we could be spending making the events better.
So we’ve decided to introduce a nominal entry fee of £29.99 for one entry, with subsequent entries costing £10.
If we get a similar number of entries to previous years, this will make up the majority of the software costs and means we won’t have to increase ticket prices to the event itself.
This fee is well below the industry standard for awards events because we really, really don’t want it to prevent smaller outlets from entering. As we say on stage every year, they deserve just as much recognition as any of the bigger media businesses.
If for whatever reason the entry cost remains a barrier, please email team@publisherpodcasts.com or team@publishernewsletters.com and we can offer support.
Thank you for your understanding. This isn’t an easy decision for us, but if we want to continue running the Awards, it’s a necessary step.
Esther, Peter and Chris
Learn more about the Publisher Podcast Awards and Publisher Newsletter Awards.
