EDITOR’S COMMENT: Around this time each year, EG has the privilege of gathering some of the very best people in the business to make some very serious, difficult and important decisions.
We gather, usually in a beautiful building with amazing views, drink copious amounts of tea and coffee, nibble biscuits and M&S sandwich platters and deliberate, debate and ultimately decide who to celebrate at the EG Awards.
This year we still did the gathering, but we had to supply our own biscuits and deliberate over Teams. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve had enough of Teams meetings, but the week of calls I had with our judges was one of my most enjoyable during lockdown. They were engaging, fun, focused and delivered a stellar list of shortlisted entrants for this year’s EG Awards.
Last year we did all we could to make the awards more inclusive and, dare I say it, more fun. We ditched the requirement for black tie and mixed up the awards to focus on purpose and what real estate is about, not just what it does. I don’t know about you, but I bloody loved it.
We were always going to shake it up again this year. But circumstance has meant that we are really, really going to shake it up.
While we are gradually shifting out of lockdown, it is impossible to know when we are going to get back to gathering in a single room – in that overused but faithful Great Ballroom at Grosvenor House – and wait patiently in the hope that our name gets called out and that we get to take home a shiny EG Award.
But in this world of uncertainty, there is one thing I can tell you for sure. And that is what the EG Awards really mean to us – which is, quite simply, everything. These awards are our own special opportunity to showcase you. To give you your night and to celebrate the good this industry does.
Last year we wanted to celebrate more than just deals. We celebrated difference. The difference that you, the real estate industry, was making. We celebrated collaboration and how it was creating better service, better places and better businesses. We celebrated flexibility. How you were building businesses and places that flex with the changing nature of the world in which we live. We celebrated what the industry was doing to add to, instead of take away from, the environment (both socially and physically). And we celebrated how you as an industry were striving to be different. To look different, to think differently, to behave differently, and to share a different story.
And nothing is going to stop us doing that again.
But we, like everyone, have to adapt today for tomorrow. Which is why we have taken the decision to make this year’s EG Awards a virtual gathering. It won’t be any less spectacular than last year’s awards, and it won’t be any less powerful. We are working with a specialist company to create a virtual world just for us to celebrate in. The EG Awards 2020 will be the greatest single celebration of an industry, an awards event focused entirely on the purpose of showcasing the achievements of the sector. An event that puts the successes that you have had as an industry – be that deals, design, development, diversity or doing good – ahead of anything else.
The event might be virtual, but the reality it celebrates certainly won’t be.
And, if you haven’t made the shortlist, remember entries for the Superhero Award, which celebrates individuals and companies that have really made a difference during the pandemic, are still open. Click here for details.
In more virtual news, while EG never sleeps, our printers do, so next week’s edition will be app-only. Still all the same great content, just entirely digital.
To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@egi.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @estatesgazette
