Creative Midlands East

Special Event Blog: Awards Evening – Young Creative Awards 2013

Posted: 14 May 2013 07:44 AM PDT

Mark Del starting the event

Last night not one but two bloggers from Creative Nottingham enjoyed the atmosphere, the entertainment, (the free food – thanks) and the awards ceremony for the Young Creative Awards 2013. Much quicker off the mark than I was Jagdish Patel, who published the same evening. His post includes the amazing video of the overall winner, Ashley Harvey (or @ToadBacon as he is known on Twitter).

A full list of the winners is on the Nottingham Young Creative Awards website. There were some Highly Commended awards also handed out last night, I hope these will be added to the website soon.

There were a few of us live tweeting the event last night, our light emitting screens probably annoying our neighbours in the dark Playhouse auditorium. None of us, of course, know each other in the physical world: @brightideasnott, @NottinghamCVS, and @creativenotts (that's us). You can explore hashtag #YCA13 for all the linked tweets.

There is background to the awards at the end of this post. Some thoughts from my scrawled handwriting in the dark:

The evening ran smoothly, a tribute to the organisers and, I am sure, the team at the Playhouse. I got slightly worried when the winners were taken away through a side door after each photo, and no one seemed to return. Before I could think of which zombie film that reminded me of, the winners started to trickle back in from the other side.
Mouthy Poet reads Olu Odeyemi's poem

It was a brilliant idea to have a few Mouthy Poets on stage to read from the winning entries in the Creative Writing category. They weren't credited in the programme or on stage, by name, but they were very good. Olu Odeyemi's evocative poem couldn't have had a better reader, this was one of my personal highlights of the evening.
Mouthy Poets are also Pushy Poets – one of them took advantage of his time with the microphone to advertise their group. And they were handing out leaflets after, so it is the least I can do to point you to their website.
Another un-credited star was the woman doing simultaneous translation to British Sign Language. I was sitting where I could enjoy her good humour, even when she was put on the spot, and into the spotlight, by Mark Del who was the evening's compere and had a mission to keep the noise and cheer up to Exuberance levels.
This year was the first year for the Dance category so thanks to Nottingham CityCare Partnership for sponsoring it. And we were treated to an amazing performance by three young dancers, absolutely amazing expression, technique. My other personal highlight of the evening.

There was a real feeling of talent and creativity, of connections and achievement last night. A wonderful evening.

Background

This is the fifth year since the awards were started. They are open to young people between the 13 and 24 and their were separate sections for 13 – 15, 16 – 18 and 19 – 24 years old. And if you don't live in Nottingham, you can still enter if you study or work in the city. This year the categories were Animation & Digital Media, Architecture & Design, Creative Writing, Dance, Fashion & Textiles, Film, Graphic Design, Music, Photography, Visual Arts. Full information is on their website.

Each category winner will receive £150 cash in a week or two, and Ashley Harvey, as overall winner, an extra £200.

It was great to see such a long list of sponsors: One Nottingham, Maber, Dance4, New College Nottingham, Nottingham Trent University, Central College Nottingham, Nottingham City Council, Nottingham CityCare Partnership, The Co-operative, Skeleton Productions, Spool Films/Post, Creative Quarter.

John is one of our team of bloggers. Although slightly outside the eligible age range for these awards, he is always up for a good Awards Evening. Send invitations to john AT creativenottingham.com or follow him on Twitter @johnwithbeard

Creative Midlands