Keeping the tradition alive: The 2021 TV WEEK Logies

Jumping forward to 2019, the TV WEEK Logie Awards were viewed live by over 853,000 metro viewers, and over the past decade Gold Logies have been awarded to household names such as Tom Gleeson, Grant Denyer, Carrie Bickmore, Waleed Aly and Asher Keddie.
 
In 2020, the COVD-19 pandemic saw the cancellation of the Logies for the first time in its history. But in 2021, they’re back and we spoke to Tamika Hennessey, Marketing Manager at Are Media, about staging the Awards, how they’ve managed remotely, and what the future looks like.

We needed to have a central point where the data and those assets were all saved, and that didn’t involve replicating assets multiple times for each judge

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Building an event like the TV WEEK Logie Awards is a huge undertaking, from the time the last award show airs to the time the next one launches, Tamika Hennessey and her team are working with partners, Networks, judges and building one of the biggest evenings in the Australian TV calendar.
 
“It's about a nine-month planning process for this particular event” Tamika Hennessey says. “That process encompasses everything from planning the event, to receiving submissions and organising the Most Outstanding judging process - judged by industry experts.
 
“When I took on this role seven years ago, the submission and judging component was quite physical so we had to manually build packs for each judge. It was a lot of repetition, essentially two weeks of packing these boxes of DVDs that were then sent out. That level of coordination, expense and management took the team a significant amount of time to coordinate and schedule everything - this process needed an overhaul. 
 
“So we looked at a more digitised solution. This is where Dropbox came in.  Dropbox has been working with the TV WEEK Logies for more than six years, saving time and helping the team streamline their team management as well as building folders for the submission and judging process.” 
 
As the program has evolved, it’s meant looking at how the technology can be adapted to make the submission process more streamlined, as well as ensure that the judges were able to download the submissions as well as make their judging process easy. 
 
Hennessey adds: “We needed to have a central point where that data and those assets were all saved that judges were able to access, and that didn’t involve replicating assets multiple times for each judge.

“We also wanted to make sure Networks were only submitting assets once, whereas previously for one submission they would have to submit multiple copies of the same asset.
 
“I guess the biggest thing at the start, was making sure that the files uploaded were of a size that was good quality and easy to download.”
 
By using Dropbox to connect the moving pieces of the planning process - Are Media has made the process more simple and traceable than sending boxes through the post. 

Change on the horizon

While the team has been coping with the workplace upset of 2020, they’ve been able to stay connected to their work systems and even implement some new ideas into the latest version of the Logies. 
 
While the technology has moved forward and helped the team embrace a digital life, the Logies is still a live event first and foremost. “The Event moved to the Gold Coast in 2018 and it's been a huge success and a great home for the Logies.” 
 
Working with Are Media and the Logies is always a challenge, and it’s the change that keeps Tamika going “It's extremely fast paced. It's challenging and always changing, you're working on multiple brands, multiple events…and the partners and people are amazing.”
 
The 2021 TV WEEK Logie Awards have recently been announced, and will be held on Sunday November 28th at The Star Gold Coast in Queensland.