BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
The BikeBiz Awards are back for the fifth year, set to celebrate the cycling industry’s finest once again, with the Awards night taking place on the evening before Cycle Show begins, on Wednesday September 26th.
Not content to rest on our laurels, we’ve shaken the prizes up and have expanded and improved the awards for 2012. How so? For Olympic year we’ve introduced new categories and switched some of the previous ones around, so it really is all up for grabs and you, member of the cycling industry, could be in line to pick one of the coveted awards up.
NEW CATEGORIES
Without further ado, let’s take a look at the new awards. Our retail section covers a broad cross section of cycle retail. Our Independent Retailer prize remains as before, as does the Workshop award, but new for 2012 is the Specialist Retailer prize – pitting online retailers against High Street chains. Finally, we’ve got a Star Store award, which can be won by either a chain store or IBD.
Moving on, we’ve introduced a wider range of distributor prizes. Bike distributors will have at least two chances to pick up an award, with prizes for sales and marketing – and the same for P&A distributors. Finally, a Specialist Distributor award has also been introduced for distributors in the bike and outdoor markets alike.
Journalists and other media types will be pleased to hear the Consumer Print Publication and Consumer Website prizes remain firmly in place for 2012.
Other prize highlights include Best Use of Social Media, whether that’s Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or any similar method for spreading the word on your brand. Bike Brand and P&A Brand are two more awards remaining from previous years, while the Services and Training prize does exactly what it says on the tin, honouring the service and training companies making a big impression in the trade. Last but not least is the Cycling Campaign of the Year – open to any campaign or project that has worked hard to put more precious bums on saddles and boost the numbers of those cycling.
EARLY BIRD
The BikeBiz Awards will be returning to the Hilton Metropole next to the NEC, Birmingham for 2012, once again handily taking place the night before Cycle Show begins, on the evening of Wednesday September 26th. So why not come along once you’ve settled in your hotel or set up your stand at Cycle Show? Early Bird ticket prices mean that the canny can get in for less. Tickets cost just £20 before August 31st, and then £30 afterwards. And yes, those tickets will include food and free drinks, as before.
For information of trade tickets and sponsorship opportunities, please email Jennie.Lane@intentmedia.co.uk or Carly.Bailey@intentmedia.co.uk or call 01992 535647.
HOW IT WORKS
But we’re getting ahead ourselves – before you can enjoy yourselves alongside the rest of the trade on the awards night, we’ve got to work out who deserves to pick up an award – which is where you come in.
Shortly we’ll open the lobbying process, when you can nominate a company in the bike trade for the appropriate awards. When the lobbying period closes we count the nominations and – based on those – we produce the list of finalists. Then it’s up to the independent trade judges to make their final selection on who deserves to win. We’ll be covering the process in plenty of detail over the coming months – and providing frequent reminders so you don’t miss out.
Here’s a selection of images from last year’s Awards from our Facebook page.
Who won last year? Find out here.
Got any questions? Ask us at BikeBiz@intentmedia.co.uk
