NSW Tourism Awards 2021

NSW Tourism Awards

The New South Wales Tourism Awards honour excellence in the tourism industry and give members the chance to come together and celebrate their achievements. With 29 award categories up for grabs, the awards showcase a variety of tourism products and businesses that are delivering outstanding service to visitors in NSW.

NSW Tourism Industry Council, powered by Business NSW in partnership with Destination NSW has been delivering the NSW Tourism Awards for the past six years, engaging a broad section of tourism partners.

Client

Business NSW

Delivery

Virtual

Date

3 February, 2022

The Challenge

An extremely short lead time was the primary challenge after organisers made the tough decision to pivot to a virtual production three weeks before the event.

Traditionally the awards night is a black-tie gala event held at a premium location in Sydney. Following the cancellation of the 2020 awards due to COVID-19, the industry was excited to come together. Ticket sales were strong and 600 people were expected to attend the Luna Park celebrations in November, 2021.

However following rising Omicron case numbers, the event was postponed and in January, further decisions were made to cancel Luna Park in favour of a virtual format. Event organisers had three weeks to plan the virtual production in order to ensure the state-based awards were completed prior to the national awards in March.

Our Solution

Harnessing our experience in online awards shows, we were able to ensure the awards still maintained a sense of fun and celebration and excitement.
We presented a solution that allowed for easy engagement for all attendees, allowing them to enjoy the evening without any pressure to learn complex new platforms
The focus on the delivery was on pace and momentum. We wanted to keep things spontaneous, so managed a system connecting all finalists in live, putting them front and centre as announcements were made. This was a highlight of the event as Pyrus was able to capture the authentic reactions of entrants that hadn’t expected to win their category
Audience chat, social media posts and reactions were all shared in real-time with the MCs which proved extremely popular with attendees, driving high-quality engagement and giving the MCs additional content to refer to throughout the proceedings

Results

1,000 views of the virtual broadcast – a 40% increase in attendees from the original live format
Over 500 interactions on the chat function
Feedback regarding the virtual format was also gathered from the guests which included:
"It was entertaining and fast paced – as a virtual event I think it was important to keep the program moving"
"It was very engaging. Loved seeing the live crosses to the winners!"
"Great work by the team – a sensational pivot that deserves a Tourism Award!"

Working with us

Pyrus Event Services was the first port of call for Belinda King, owner, King Events, who organised the event. According to Belinda: "Adam is the guru when it comes to virtual and hybrid events. Given the short deadline we had to turn this around, it was imperative to work with people that I trust a thousand percent.

"Our primary objective was to ensure attendees still felt part of the evening despite it being online. We were determined to make it as interactive as possible and really showcase the entrants, many of whom have had a rough couple of years due to COVID. Adam took the time to really understand these objectives and ensure our goals were one and the same."
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As Pyrus Event Services and King Events are based in the Riverina, Adam suggested operating the production from Wagga Wagga rather than finding a studio in Sydney. This gave both the businesses the opportunity to showcase the level of expertise and professionalism in regional New South Wales.

"Adam is cool as a cucumber and will respectfully guide you through what will and won’t work," said Belinda King from King Events. "He has an amazing ability to make everyone around him feel comfortable which is so helpful when communicating with presenters. He also had an amazing team around him and despite spending eight hours together in a couple of small production rooms, we all worked so well together and had a lot of fun!"