Virtual format of 2020 SCBEX awards a success
The 22nd annual SCBEX Spirit of Swift Current Business Excellence awards presentation had a virtual format due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but there was just as much excitement about the event as in previous years and it reached even more people.
Swift Current & District Chamber of Commerce CEO Karla Wiens was pleased with the outcome and the final production.
“Lots of planning went into this, because it was definitely an unknown,” she told the Prairie Post. “Our business community is so important to me and I wanted to make sure that we did this to the absolute best of our capability and have a top-notch production to recognize our community success.”
In previous years the annual SCBEX awards gala took place at the Living Sky Casino Event Centre. It is always an important event on the annual business calendar to recognize the contributions of businesses, not-for-profit organizations and individuals to the community through their entrepreneurship, innovation and dedication.
The COVID-19 public health measures and guidelines made it impossible to host such a large event this year, but the business chamber still felt it was important to go ahead with the SCBEX awards in a different format.
“It was a very terrifying, daunting task at the start of this, because this was something completely new,” she said. “There was consideration should we have SCBEX, and absolutely, because it's important what businesses have gone through to launch their businesses, it's important what they're going through now, and what's going to happen going forward, and we want to celebrate and recognize that.”
After a lot of research and learning about virtual events, the chamber selected a local production company, The Landing Studio, to produce the virtual event.
“Once we chose our production company, lots of planning went into that, how we wanted this, because there's lots of options how to potentially do it,” she said. “We were learning on the fly and we revamped it several times as we went along. We did several dry runs of what the actual production might look like and tweaked things here, tweaked things there. … So it's daunting, but it's also exciting as well.”
The awards presentation and announcement of the winners in the different award categories was live streamed on Friday evening, Oct. 23.
“This was complimentary and we felt that was very important,” she noted. “So buying tickets to that event in previous years have been $100 for a ticket and then you get that lovely sit-down plated dinner from the casino. This year it was complimentary for anybody in the world who wanted to watch.”
The SCBEX gala at the casino can accommodate a maximum of 250 people. The viewership for this year's online gala already exceeded that number on the night of the live streamed event.
“That night we had almost a thousand people plus it's recorded of course,” she said. “So people can go back and watch at their leisure. … They have been going back and watching all throughout the weekend. Those numbers are just steadily climbing. It's fantastic.”
Midday on the Monday after the live streamed event the awards presentation was already watched by over 3,000 people.
“I hope this is going to promote all of them, the sponsors and the finalists, all the nominees as well, and everybody involved,” she said. “Anything we can do to highlight and showcase our local businesses and entrepreneurs, that's our goal.”
Wiens received positive feedback about the live streamed event. There were comments about the high quality of the production and the convenience to watch the event from the comfort of their homes.
“I had a lot of people say to me they haven't been able to go to SCBEX before and this was really nice to watch on a screen from the comfort of their home and see familiar faces,” she recalled. “The other comment I've had is it's nice to be able to turn on the TV, see people that I know and familiar, and have a night of celebration. I think it was a really nice way for people to see things about people that they know, but also sharing the excitement and celebration. There can only be one award winner in each category. … However, my hope is that all of the nominees and the finalists were celebrating no matter what. It's amazing to be recognized by our community this way.”
Wiens hosted the live event from the studio of The Landing Studio in downtown Swift Current. Her in-studio presentation was combined with pre-recorded information. The finalists in each award category received an opportunity to introduce their organization. After the announcement of the winner, there was also an acceptance speech. All the finalists had to record an acceptance speech beforehand, and the winner's speech was then played during the virtual event.
Wiens received feedback from finalists that it was actually nice practice to prepare and pre-record an acceptance speech. She felt the pre-recorded introduction of each finalist was also a real advantage.
“We learned a lot more about the actual finalists and their businesses, and that's really what we want to showcase,” she said. “I very much liked that aspect of it as well.”
The live streamed event included a preshow, during which viewers could post and tag photos of their watch party online and it was then featured on the virtual event's social wall.
“That was part of our effort to engage the community as well and the people that are watching,” she said. “There were lots of really nice pictures and comments posted, which I'm glad came up on the wall and helped people feel involved in the celebration, which is what we wanted.”
The virtual event meant that winners did not receive their physical awards on the night of the announcements. Chamber staff visited the winners in the week after the virtual gala to present them with their awards.
The success of this virtual format will most likely result in changes to the future format of the SCBEX award presentation.
“The live event is nice from the respect of you can use physical awards and hand it out at that time, it's nice in the sense that you can break bread with people and have conversations and visit,” she said. “It's nice in the sense that it's a lovely evening, the capturing of emotions on the spot is lovely, but to the same extent the virtual format was accessible to anybody. It provided a ton of benefit and exposure for our finalists and for our sponsors. So there's good things about both formats. I would see in the future it likely will be a blend of both in some way, shape or fashion, depending what our gathering guidelines will be going forward.”
The winners in the different categories for the 2020 SCBEX awards are:
• Start-up/New Business of the Year – Nightjar Diner Co.;
• Small Business of the Year – The Landing Studio;
• Medium Business of the Year – AM Delivery & Courier Services;
• Large Business of the Year – Safeway;
• Not-for-profit Business of the Year – Canadian Mental Health Association;
• Employer of Person(s) with Disabilities – SARCAN Swift Current;
• Home-based Business –Clean Spade Urban Farm;
• Hall of Fame inductee – The Southwest Booster;
• Member Business of the Year – Great West Auto Electric/Bumper to Bumper;
• Citizen of the Year – Trevor Marion.