Between occasional bouts of Gangnam Style dancing and men grasping for money in glass cages (think Crystal Maze) the 2012 Realex Payments Irish Web Awards were a little bit more crazy than the country’s web development community had come to expect.
The night’s ceremony began at 7pm in the Round Room in Dublin’s historic Mansion House and continued until the small hours. Last night not only saw competition for individual awards but also competition between award ceremonies. By quirk of scheduling the eircom Spider Awards were taking place at the same time as the Irish Web Awards with several of the same sites nominated in both ceremonies.
Although judging from the reaction on Twitter the Irish Web Awards’ crowd was somewhat more vocal; even the Web Awards’ accidental hastag – #hoopoff (see below) – was seen trending in Dublin.
#irishwebawards vs #hoopoff vs #eircomspiders
We were honoured to take home the Best Technology Site award (Sponsored by BH Consulting), which we jointly won with Silicon Republic; but such things could not stand. We needed to settle this epic battle of technology websites in the only civilised way known to #webawards12 nominees – a hoop-off.
Silicon Republic’s Elaine Burke (@CriticalRedPen) challenged myself and Silicon Republic’s @ARenardson to hula hoop battle (henceforth known as a #hoopoff). It seems years of Wii Fitness practice paid off and The Sociable won…but the hula hoop war with Silicon Republic is not over.
In other news, there were 28 winners in total last night; with entertainment.ie taking home the Grand Prix as well as the Best Entertainment Website award. DublinTown.ie also took home two prizes, for Most Innovative Website and Best SME/Small Business Website. Kooba scored big by becoming the inaugural winner of the Best Responsive Design award, as well as taking away the coveted Agency of the Year award. You can see a full list of winners here and read the live blog from the night here.
You can see photos of each of the night’s winners over on Ryan Whalley’s pix.ie site (@rymus)
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- It wouldn’t be the Irish Web Awards without Made in Hollywood’s Styrofoam!
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- The Irish Web Awards 2012 in Dublin’s Mansion House
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- Irish Web Awards cupcakes – before they removed the velvet rope
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- Realex Payment’s Irish Web Awards cupcakes
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- This was the green room
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- The 2012 Irish Web Awards stage
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- The 2012 Irish Web Awards stage
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- All of these bricks were taken by the end of the night
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- All of these bricks were taken by the end of the night
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- The night’s music
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- Realex Payment’s chocolates
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- A man shoving money down his pants as Rick looks on – it was that kind of night
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- The multi-award winning team behind Golden Plec
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- The winners gather
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- The Sociable’s Piers Scott and Blacknight’s Michele Neylon front and centre
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- More winners than there is space on the stage
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- The 2012 Realex Payment’s Irish Web Awards winners
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- The Sociable’s Best Technology Award. We shared with prize with the guys at Silicon Republic
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- The Sociable’s Best Technology Award. We shared with prize with the guys at Silicon Republic
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- Keep Calm and Hoop Off
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- The Sociable’s Piers Dillon-Scott (@pdscott); Category sponsor BH Consulting’s Brian Honan (@BrianHonan); Silicon Republic’s Elaine Burke (@CriticalRedPen); and Silicon Republic’s Adam Renardson (@ARenardson) – collective winners of the Best Technology Website Award. Photo Credit: Ryan Whalley @rymus
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- #irishwebawards vs #hoopoff vs #eircomspiders
Thanks to @antoniegeerts for some of these photos.
