Awards Program
Recognizing the builders in your parade with awards for their craftsmanship helps boosts their marketing potential, sparks healthy competition among your members and engages the parade attendees.
Judging Categories
There are several categories to select from when creating your awards program. Many parades also allow the public to participate in the voting process by selecting a “People’s Choice” award.
Price
It may be helpful to create specific pricing categories after you have received all of the builder entries. This allows you to create categories with a manageable number of homes to be judged. A team of judges can evaluate homes in just their assigned price category.Features
- Best Exterior
- Best Design
- Best Master Suite
- Best Kitchen
- Best Craftsmanship
- Best Energy Efficiency
- Best Water Efficiency
Price and Features Combo
For remodeled homes, an option is to have the builder indicate on the entry form which judging categories they would like to enter. For example, “Best Kitchen under $20,000” or “Best Outdoor Living $10,001-$25,000.”
Size of Home
Based upon the homes that are entered in your parade, categories could include Best Home up to 2,000 Square Feet, Best Home 2,501–3,000 Square Feet, etc.
Doing Business with a Member
This award recognizes the builder who uses the highest percentage of HBA members on their parade project.
Selecting the Judges
It’s helpful to have a team of at least three to five judges with diverse backgrounds. For example, your judging team could include an:
- Architect
- Realtor
- Interior designer
- Custom home builder/past parade builder
- City inspector
Depending on the number of homes in your parade, you may need to have several teams of judges to keep their workload manageable. For consistency, all of the judges should rank all of the homes in their category, usually over a one or two-day period prior to the parade event weekend.
You can present the award winners – except for People’s Choice, because judging occurs during the event — at a kick-off party or award presentation dinner the night before the event starts so the awards can be displayed in the homes during the parade.
Sample materials:
Public Voting
For the People’s Choice award, encourage attendees to vote by offering incentives, such as:
- Offering the chance to receive a gift card or voucher.
- Including the ballot as part of the ticket.
- Adding an online ballot to your app.
