Hearting the Irish Web Awards
What a great night! The finest heads of the web community packed into the Radisson SAS Royal in Dublin last night to celebrate the best Irish websites of 2008 for the Irish Web Awards. From the Irish Times, to Phantom, Twitterfone, Dublin.ie, Spicendipity, Pixenate, Pixie et al – organisations of all shapes and sizes were honoured. What the Irish Web Awards really demonstrated last night is that the web is all about opportunity. I love the smell of democratised web honours in the morning. The full list of Irish Web Awards winners.
But the best part of the show was the spirit of fun. Rick is a megastar. The show wouldn’t have been the same without him. Beard included. Unbridled joy at times. There were cheers, shouts and laughs galore throughout the evening. Yes and then there was Ben heckling. And the speeches were great too. There wasn’t a million shoutouts to second cousins twice removed or any Paltrow moments. I especially enjoyed Deborah’s and both of Sabrina’s. It’s good to hear real heartfelt speeches from those working at the coalface of the web – not Mr X, CEO of BigDesignHouse Co Ltd whatever.
The Irish Web Awards in a heartbeart:
- Attack of Ws, Conor rocking out, too many cool sites, creamy cupcakes of sweet evilness, Tommy – Pancake Tsar, swish-schwoo hotel, Rick – MC King, Elly and champagne, Sabrina Sabrina, Sinead’s Wispa goodness, Towering Alan scheming photo ops, smartly-dressed Darragh live tweeting, AC/DC, Brian Greene’s tshirt rocked and Marie & PeterD doing Jagerbombs (madness!).
Not going to attempt linklove.. This post would look like a link whore. Great to meet everyone last night. Lots of cool new people like Tommy, Enda, Alan, Robin, Gav and Gordon. Don’t kill me if I’ve missed you!
Damien was super host. An impeccable professional, like always. I really enjoy the little surprises he adds to the show – like the Ws and the cupcakes. Nice touches. I was honoured to attend his show last night. I heard lots of people say it was the best awards show they attended in years. That the show really captures the community spirit. Can’t wait until the Web Awards 09.
I recorded some videos and I will update the post as more upload.
Sabrina Dent and Deborah Hadley accepting for Best eCommerce/Services for Spicendipity.
Marcus MacInnes accepting Best Practice for Pixie.
Walter Higgins accepts Most Innovative Site for Pixenate. Nice speech. Somehow caught John’s cool intros. Brian Greene rocks it with the Pixies too.
Anthony McGuinness accepting Best Council for Dublin.ie.
Sabrina Dent accepting the Most Beautiful Site award for Twitterfone.
And Damien pretended to have technical issues. I think he planned to rickroll us all along.
And then Damien wraps it up with thanks. Wish I caught more of Rick’s talky bits.
What a night! So fab to have been able to see you again, even if it was only for a bit. And I have to say, I am truly grateful for the video – both because it means Pat got to see it, and because I was so stunned on both occasions, I barely have any memory of what happened.
You’re brilliant, thanks so much
Great post!
“Pancake tsar”…. I like it!
It was a great night. Watching the videos brings it back.
Thanks for the mentions Alexia and the video!
Like Sabrina said, it was a whirlwind, so now instead of just wondering how silly I sounded, it has been documented!
Nice one on the vids Alexia