How to host an awards night: the running order, the script and the host

The short version: an awards night is a dinner with a show in the middle. Split the awards into two blocks between courses, allow about three minutes an award, keep the biggest for last, and give the host the clock.

Awards nights overrun for the same few reasons every time: the speeches nobody timed, the winner who takes a minute to walk from the back of the room, the slide that shows the winner's name before the host reads it, and the main course arriving in the middle of the best award. All of them are fixed before the night, in the running order, the script and the rehearsal. Here is how to plan each, whether you host it yourself or book someone to.

The running order

A typical evening for 150 to 300 guests, with the awards between courses:

1. 18:30 Arrival and drinks. Seating plan on an easel and on the tables; finalists seated on the aisle, near the stage.
2. 19:15 Call to dinner. Seating a big room takes a quarter of an hour, so call it early.
3. 19:30 The welcome. The host first, then five minutes from the chair or the managing director.
4. 19:40 Starter.
5. 20:10 Awards, block one. About a third of the awards, the lighter categories, no more than 30 minutes.
6. 20:40 Main course. The kitchen's longest slot; leave it alone.
7. 21:30 Awards, block two. The rest, building to the biggest award last. No more than 40 minutes.
8. 22:15 Dessert and the close. The host thanks the sponsors, the organisers and the room, and sends everyone to the bar or the dance floor.

The alternative is every award after dinner, in one block. The kitchen likes it, and it is simpler to run, but by ten o'clock the room is three drinks in and the last awards are spoken over. Two blocks keep attention for the ones that matter. Whatever you choose, tell the venue exactly when service stops, because nothing undoes a winner's moment like a plate being cleared behind them.

How long each award takes

Allow about three minutes an award, which means twelve awards is a block of around 40 minutes once the links are in. Each one goes like this:

• The category and the sponsor, read by the host, about 20 seconds.
• The shortlist, read aloud or shown on screen, 30 seconds.
• The winner, and walk-up music the moment the name is said.
• The winners' walk. From the back of a big room this takes 45 seconds, which is why finalists sit on the aisle near the front. Mark the route, and check it has a ramp as well as steps.
• The trophy and the photograph, at a spot marked with tape so the photographer isn't chasing people across the stage.
• Off the other side, so the next winner isn't queuing behind the last one.

Speeches are the decision that sets the length of the night. The cleanest rule is no winners' speeches except for the top award, and that one capped at a minute and agreed with the winner beforehand.

The script

Write it for the ear, not the page. Short sentences, names that are easy to say, nothing the host has to read twice.

• One card per award: the category, the sponsor credit as the sponsor wants it, who presents, the shortlist, the winner, and the cue for the music and the slide.
• Pronunciation on the card, spelled the way it sounds. Check every winner's name and job title with them, or with someone who knows them, before the night.
• The links between blocks, written in full, so the host never has to fill a silence by inventing something about your company.
• The opening and the close, with the housekeeping in the opening (exits, toilets, the photographer) and the thanks in the close.

The host gets the winners list in confidence, so the names come out right; a spare set of cards stays with whoever runs the screen. The person running the slides holds each winner's slide until the host has said the name. Rehearse that above everything else: it is the mistake every room remembers.

The rehearsal

Do it in the room on the afternoon, with the screen and the sound on.

• Walk the route from a finalist's table to the stage and off again.
• Run the slides from start to finish with the host reading the cues.
• Check the microphones: a lectern for the speeches, a handheld for the host, and a spare.
• Brief the presenters, usually the sponsors: where to stand, which side to hand the trophy, where to look for the photograph.
• Play the first and last award in full, with somebody walking up, and time them.
• Agree a plan for an absent winner: who collects, and what the host says.

What the host does, and doesn't

The host welcomes the room, sets the tone, introduces every speaker, reads every award, keeps the clock, fills the gaps when a trophy goes missing or a slide won't load, and closes the night. A good one makes the winners look good and the evening feel like one occasion rather than a list.

The host doesn't make it about themselves. No ten-minute stand-up set, no roasting the winners, no jokes about the reorganisation, and no drinking until the last award is given. The room came for the awards; the host's job is to carry them, with the energy to hold a room and the discipline not to hog it.

Keeping it on time

• A clock in the host's sightline. A countdown on the stage monitor, or a phone on the lectern.
• Someone with the kitchen. A stage manager, or the organiser, who tells the host when the plates are cleared and the venue when the block is about to end.
• A cut list agreed in advance. If the night is running late, you know what goes: a video, the second welcome, a speech. Never an award.
• The long speeches seen beforehand. Agree a length with the chair and anyone else on the bill, and ask to see the words.
• A hard stop for the band or the DJ. It gives everyone, including the host, a time to finish by.

Adding a quiz or a Treachery! segment

If the room should play as well as clap, a quiz fits an awards dinner best: one round between courses, the tables as teams, ten questions with one about the year your company has had, and the winning table announced in the second block. It fills the longest gap of the night and mixes a room that has been sitting with its own department since the drinks. Our hosted quiz works the same way, and how to host a quiz night covers running one yourself.

Treachery!, our Traitors-style game, wants a circle of 16 to 30 and about 50 minutes, so it suits a smaller team awards night before dinner, or an away day that ends with the awards, rather than a gala of 300. If the day before the dinner is a conference, see icebreakers for a conference of 100 or more.

Having it hosted

We've hosted the end-of-year awards at the global company event of Runa (formerly WeGift), and an awards night is the job a Get Social host is trained for. A Get Social host is £450 for an evening or a half day and £650 for a full day. Chris, Get Social's founder, also hosts under his own name in collaboration with Get Social, from £1,500 an evening, with the awards script and the rehearsal included. There's no VAT to add: Get Social is not VAT registered, so the price you see is the whole price. Travel outside London is extra. Everything on the page is at awards and MC hosting.