PULTEVENT
Holiday party awards ideas: 7 steps to a superlatives ceremony people actually watch
The upstairs room of a pub near London Bridge, the second Thursday in December. Paper crowns from the crackers, a long table of forty people from an accounts team, the remains of a turkey dinner. The quiz is done and people are starting to eye the door. Then the screen at the end of the room turns gold, a fanfare plays, and a caption appears: "The Ledger Awards, Year Six." Somebody at the far end says "Oh no" in the voice of a man who knows he has been nominated for Most Likely to Reply All. He has. He wins.
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Awards are the part of a work holiday party that people talk about in January. Done badly, they are a manager reading names off a phone while the room chats over them. Done well, they are a proper little ceremony: nominations the whole team voted on, a reveal with some drama, and categories funny enough that winning one is a badge of honor rather than an embarrassment.
PULTEVENT puts the ceremony on the screen from a laptop. Colleagues vote from their phones through a QR code, no app needed, just internet on the phone. The host reveals results one at a time with sound and confetti, so the moment belongs to the winner rather than to whoever is holding the list.
7 steps to a holiday awards ceremony, from nominations to the last bow
1 Nominations, a week before
Send a short list of categories and ask for nominations. Pick the four most-nominated names in each category for the final ballot on the night.
How to run it. Let the team suggest two or three of the categories themselves. The in-jokes you would never think of come from them.
On the night the ballot is full of real names and running jokes, so every vote is a laugh.
2 The red carpet screen
As the ceremony starts, the splash screen switches to a gold backdrop with the name of your awards and the year. Salute effects, a fanfare, a round of applause.
How to run it. Give the awards a name. 'The Ledgers', 'The Golden Staplers', 'The Reply-Alls'. A name makes it a tradition.
It tells the room something different is starting, and the chatter stops.
3 Live superlatives vote
One category at a time: four nominees on screen, everyone votes from their phones, the bars grow, and the host closes the vote when it is clear.
How to run it. Hide the bars until voting closes if you want suspense, or show them live if you want heckling.
Watching the bars race is half the fun, and the winner knows the whole team chose them.
4 Baby photos of the nominees
Before each category result, show the nominees' childhood photos and let the room guess who is who from their phones. Then reveal the winner.
How to run it. Collect the photos privately from nominees who agreed, or use it for one category only as a set piece.
It stretches the suspense and gives the room something to shout about while the tension builds.
5 Pre-recorded acceptance speeches
For the one serious award, ask the nominees in advance for a ten-second thank-you clip. Play the winner's clip right after the reveal.
How to run it. Keep one serious category, like Colleague of the Year, and make it heartfelt. The contrast lands.
It lets quieter winners 'speak' without standing up, and it is often the moment people remember.
6 The podium
If teams or departments have been scoring through the evening's games, close the awards with the scoreboard ceremony: special prizes, then third, second, first with confetti.
How to run it. Turn the most popular superlatives into special prizes on the podium, so individual and team awards end together.
A proper ending, with music, before the dancing starts.
7 Credits for the year
Every name in the team scrolls up the screen like the end of a film, with the year's highlights listed between them.
How to run it. Add a line for each big thing the team did this year: the audit, the move, the new system. Keep it dry.
Not everyone wins an award. Everyone gets their name on the screen.
The team votes
Superlatives chosen by colleagues from their phones, not handed down by the boss.
Anonymous ballots
The screen shows totals, never who voted for whom.
A reveal with drama
Results appear on cue with fanfare, so every category gets its moment.
Funny, never cruel
Categories written to celebrate quirks, not to single anyone out for real faults.
Writing categories that land
The best categories describe a behavior everyone recognizes and nobody minds: Most Likely to Bring Snacks, Best Out-of-Office Message, Most Creative Use of a Spreadsheet, Calmest During the Outage. The worst ones are about looks, drinking, private life or anything that might come up in an HR meeting next year.
A test that works: would the winner happily put it on their desk? If not, cut it.
How many awards is too many
Eight categories is plenty for a team of forty. At two minutes each plus the reveal, that is about twenty-five minutes, which is the upper limit before the room gets restless. For bigger parties, cut to five or six and spread them across the evening instead of doing them all in one block.
"Can we add Best Hair?"
"No."
Making sure it is not always the same people
Popular extroverts tend to sweep superlatives. That is fine for one or two categories, but not for all eight. Mix in categories that suit quieter people (Best Problem Solver, Most Patient on the Help Desk) and keep one person to one win if you can. The nomination week gives you the chance to balance the final ballots before anybody sees them.
Christmas do, holiday party, end-of-year drinks
In the UK this will usually be the Christmas do; in the US a holiday party; in many international companies an end-of-year event that avoids any particular holiday. The format is the same. If your team is multilingual, guest screens follow each phone's language, so the voting buttons appear in each person's own. The category names are yours, so write them in the office's working language.
When part of the team is remote
Share the stage window in a video call and the remote colleagues vote from their phones through the QR code on their screen. Post their awards to them in advance with a note not to open it until the ceremony. It makes a strong moment when a winner on the call opens the box live.
Rehearse the reveal
Start the free 3-day demo (no card) a week out, build your categories and practice revealing two results on your own TV so the timing feels natural. The full version costs a one-time licence and no subscription, with pricing on pultevent.ru/en.
About the author
PULTEVENT was built by Ruslan Barashkin, who has hosted weddings, birthdays and office parties since 2014: over 500 events, best host of Moscow 2024 and of Saint Petersburg 2023 at the TOP 100 Awards. He made it for his own nights first. The rest is at pultevent.ru/en.
How to run a holiday party awards ceremony
- 1
Two weeks before, pick a name for the awards and draft six to eight categories with the team.
- 2
A week before, collect nominations and choose four finalists per category.
- 3
Collect baby photos and acceptance clips from the finalists who agree.
- 4
Build the red carpet screen, the ballots and the credits in the console.
- 5
On the night, put the QR code up after dinner and run the categories one by one.
- 6
Close with the podium and the year's credits, then hand over to the music.
FAQ
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