Barry_Green
Moderator
Ah, young Monk, that was actually the whole reason TO apply. This thread was in response to another one:PK Gillock said:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=4187&highlight=videoawards
Basically someone wrote in and said "are any of these contests legit? how do we know?"
So I volunteered to be the guinea pig. I tried to enter as many of 'em as I could find (and afford). I did some web surfing and found six contests that all had upcoming deadlines, and entered 'em all. It's not that I care about winning more trophies, I did it to find out how these places work and see what they offer, and to answer the question that was asked in the other thread.
Yes, they all have enry fees -- every one of 'em charges between $40 and $60 to enter. The bigger question was, do they just say "oh, you're fool enough to send us $40 to enter, so maybe you're fool enough to send us $150 -- we'll all tell you 'you're a winner' so we can rob you of more dough." That was kind of what we were exploring by entering all these crazy contests. And that's definitely how a couple of so-called "film festivals" operate -- scam operations through and through that grind you for more and more dough, and they'll accept *anything* as long as you send them the entry fee. Which just seems dishonest. So we wanted to see how the "awards" contests work.
And, like I said a couple of posts above, I'm not sure what conclusions can be drawn. I entered six total, and won four. So obviously my respect level for the two who just said "no" has gone up quite a bit -- the Telly and the Omni awards. As for the rest, all but one said "you win, so claim your free certificate". Which is okay, I guess -- they're not asking for anything more from me. One said "okay, you won, so now send us money for your certificate." That seems bogus.
If I'd won every one of 'em, and they all said "now buy your trophy", then I'd be able to confidently say "yeah, they're rip-off scams". But I don't think that's how it is. They tell you when you don't win, they give you free certificates when you do win (all but one, that is) and the trophy is optional (and QUITE expensive!). And they print the names of the winners on their websites, so you know they don't just tell everyone that they're winners.
Obviously these operations are moneymakers, but I don't think that they're out-and-out scams. I also don't believe any of these awards would carry any weight with one's peers (except the Telly, and they're one of the ones who said "no").
Entry fees are nothing new, I wouldn't look down on any contest for charging an entry fee, 'cause the Emmys charge $130 and the Clios charge $300, and those are two of the most respected contests around. But with those, you don't have to pay for your award when you win, which is a big difference from these other contests. Of course, the other contests say they do it this way to keep costs down (which may be true; their entry fees are 1/4 to 1/5 the bigger contests' fees!)
So I guess the final summary is: these awards are clearly not hard to win, but you do have to show some level of competence before they'll declare you a winner. They may make your company's lobby look more impressive, but they won't carry much weight with your peers. If you think your work's really good, and you can afford the entry fees, and you think having a brass or glass statue would be fun, go ahead and enter. I do think there's a little bit of legitimacy to them, in that they don't just make EVERYONE win. And it doesn't look bad in your marketing to your end customers either, to say that your product won this award and that award and the other award...
But they're not the trophies that will get your peers in the industry to stand up and take notice. For that you need to win the biggies: the Emmy, Tony, Oscar, Bafta, Clio, Grammy, and Golden Globe -- those are some of the biggies. These littler contests aren't, although the Telly seems to be somewhere inbetween.
So it was just for fun, and to see how the contests respond, and to see if any of them are blatant "trophy mills" who'll tell anyone with a checkbook "hey, you're a winner".