When Time Inc., now Future Publishing, revived the Motor Boat Awards in 2007, it was reviving a name rather than an institution. An awards programme only carries weight if the industry it judges treats attendance as non-negotiable, and that status cannot be announced. It has to be built year on year out of venues, guest lists and the sense that the right people are in the room.
Our team, then operating as Saltwater Stone and now part of BLUE, won the event management contract via competitive tender, with a brief to make the Awards matter to the global motorboat industry.
We launched with a 200-guest event at The Savoy Hotel, setting a standard that framed the Awards as a fixture of the luxury marine calendar rather than a trade presentation. Over the following nine years we ran the programme across a series of five-star central London hotels, handling venue, guest lists and production end to end.
The creative strategy changed from year to year while the standard of delivery did not, which is what kept the industry’s interest from one edition to the next. Being treated as part of the client’s team rather than as a supplier gave us the latitude to shape the event rather than simply execute it.
We played a key role in the Awards through to their 10th anniversary in 2016, by which point they had become the boating industry’s must-attend event. The programme sits within a wider events capability spanning press launches, boating festivals, VIP dinners and boat tests worldwide, delivered to any budget.
