Helping make the Loeries fly

Major sponsors are the SABC, Ads24, Gearhouse, Cape Town Tourism and the City of Cape Town. The new home of the Loeries event, The Good Hope Centre, has been made available through the support of Cape Town Tourism and the City of Cape Town, as well as the Cape Town Partnership. In addition to the Good Hope Centre, the inner city of Cape Town will become a Loeries Village for the weekend.

Centre of all activity

Long Street is the centre of all activity with registration taking place at the Grand Daddy Hotel and a portion of Long Street has been closed to allow pedestrians to enjoy the official after-parties. “The Grand Daddy Hotel is the perfect combination of what I see as 'Executive Chic' - luxury but not pompous - and suits the Loeries' brand perfectly,” believes Human.

During the day, the Loeries moves to Camps Bay where the strip entertains guests, with everything including the Master & Savant beach soccer, Adobe Sponsors' Lunch, a media lunch, VIP lounge, the unforgettable Velocity Party and many agency lunches.

“The Loerie Awards is a huge logistical undertaking and we work very closely with our partners in the city of Cape Town to get everything ready, including permits, cleaning, security and road closures,” says Heloise Fourie, the logistics producer from H-Factor.

“Behind-the-scenes assistance”

“There is an enormous amount of behind-the-scenes assistance that we get from so many unsung heroes,” continues Human.

“For example, we have developed our own entry management and judging system that is 100% internet based. Our judges this year used Apple iPod Touch devices for the first time and all scores were instantaneously recorded via the Internet - removing any need for ballot counting or the possibility of error. We could not have done this without the support of Hetzner, who host our Internet servers in state-of-the-art facilities that give us absolute reliability and dependability.”

Orchestra Blue, Sonovision and Media Host are also companies whose employees contributed tireless hours to getting entries ready for judging assist the entry process.

With the move to Cape Town, there are many new sponsors, including Adobe Systems, which has come on board to sponsor the Advertising Mixed Campaign Category. Other special awards promoting the use of media include the Vodacom Mobile Media Award for Digital Advertising, the Online Advertising Award sponsored by the SpaceStation, and the Sappi Creative Use of Paper Award.

Pro bono

The Loeries campaign this year has been produced pro bono by Metropolitan Republic, along with its partners Hello Computer, Zero One One, Wicked Pixels, Egg Films and Audio Militia.

Additional sponsors and partners include Brandhouse, Greensky, Cape Film Commission, Aon South Africa, Mango Airlines, Tempest Car Hire, DJ Badly, Gallo Images, Paygate, Ornico Group, Rocketseed, Newsclip, Lifesense Financial Services, Crowne Plaza Johannesburg - The Rosebank, Universal Music Group, EMI Music, Ultra Litho, juju, the Core Group, and Services Seta.

The Loerie Awards Festival Weekend runs 24 - 27 September 2009. Go to www.theloerieawards.co.za for more information.