Reimaru Files along with seven other pop-culture websites have banded together to give recognition to the best geek conventions in the country.

The Golden Ticket Awards 2014 will give credit to the various geek events for providing the best event experience for their communities. Up to eight categories are in store for the committee to select based on their performance and its organizer’s fulfilled expectations to its target fan base.

The committee has added that these events are getting bigger and bigger, which means that they have to upgrade their events content as expectations become higher; thus, the Awards is the committee’s unsolicited advice to various events organizers across the country. A “People’s Choice Award” will be include for the audience to participate in the selection of this year’s best geek events.

The Golden Ticket Awards committee is expected to release the full details on its voting process and how the audience can participate by the end of November. The results are expected to be released by the last weekend of December this year.

The microsite for the 2014 Golden Ticket Awards can be found at http://goldenticketawards.tumblr.com/. Updates will also be available via the Awards’ Twitter page (@goldentixawards).

Frequently Asked Questions

So, what’s the Golden Ticket Awards anyway?

It’s our way of giving the best conventions or events that focused on Anime, Cosplay, Gaming and other Geek-related interests a way of being recognized for their effort in bringing a good quality event for their audience.

Why make such awards?

It’s something in a way to tell the event organizers that they did something great for their community, as a sign of recognition for their effort in providing the best and memorable events that people will keep on talking about it for a long time. No one has ever thought of giving these event organizers some credit for their effort to give us great events, so it’s our turn to pay them some love that they deserve.

Cool, so how does the awards actually work?

We will be putting up eight categories for the awards, each of the categories will represent the different interests in the pop culture scene; these include Gaming, Otaku (combining Anime, Manga and Cosplay) and Geek culture (comics, toys and hobbies) and an overall award to show who’s the best of the best. Of course, when there is a best award, there is also a worst award to remind the event organizers to step up their game.

The following are the categories:

1. Best Event
2. Worst Event
3. Best Otaku Event
4. Best Otaku Concert(Either concert segment within an event or a standalone concert)
5. Best Community Event(mini events or annual community gatherings)
6. Best Gaming Event
7. Best Pop Culture Event(This covers events that focused on comics, toys, collectibles, hobbies)
8. People’s Choice(We let the community pick which one is their best event)

Wait, why do you need to include the Worst Event Award?

It’s also important that there should be something to remind them that they cannot just make an event that does not provide an enjoyment to their community. We’ve seen a lot of conventions sprouting out like mushrooms and yet most of them lack the passion or maybe just a copycat of another popular convention, because you know, they think it’s just an instant cash cow.

This is not meant to be a way of shaming the organizers, but rather more on reminding them that there are people who will actually be voicing out their concerns on how crappy the event was and to let the organizers think through on what should be improved.

Okay, but why aren’t there any other pop culture categories, like J-pop and K-pop?

Unfortunately, we’ll have focus on the eight categories first, so not all other pop culture scenes will be included for this year’s GTA, but we will take this into consideration if we’ll add more categories in the coming years.

Awesome, so how does it take for an event to be the very best?

Like no one ever was? Well we will be using the following criteria on how we pick the best events:

Event Program Flow– When the program flow, guest lists and/or list of activities are matching to their target theme and audience as well as how the programs were executed.

Event Layout – When the event has a proper floor layout on their booths, stage setup, traffic flow (inside the venue), entrance access and everything that revolves on the attendee’s convenience in navigating around the venue to proper placements of booths and/or galleries.

Event Experience – The overall experience in the event, the common questions you’ll ask yourself after attending the event; was the event the same from the previous year? Did they made some new concepts to the event that made it more engaging? Were there swags that were given away worth it? The experience that really made it memorable that you will look forward for their next annual event.

You mentioned that there will be a People’s Choice, how does it work?

As for the People’s Choice, we will be listing 5 events for the community to vote on which was the best for them, this means they can only vote for one event of their choice, and the event with the most number of votes will become the People’s Choice. More on how to participate for the People Choice’s in the coming days.

So who will be evaluating the events?

Eight websites will be participating for the Golden Ticket Awards, they are:

• Anime PH Project (animephproject.com, Anime)
• The Cosplay Café (arkadymac.com, Cosplay)
• Back2Gaming (back2gaming.com, Gaming)
• Deremoe (deremoe.com, Anime)
• Otakista (otakista.com, Cosplay)
• The Reimaru Files (reimarufiles.com, Gaming)
• Tech Porn (techporn.ph, Technology)
• Otaku Events (facebook.com/OtakuEvent, Anime / Cosplay)

Will there be any chance that there will be more websites joining?

Yes there is, we might consider we adding more websites to join the committee for the next GTA.But for now, we’ll have to stick with the original eight first.

If I am one of the Otaku, Cosplay, Gaming or Geek websites that wants to become a part of the committee, will there be any screenings?

Once we are really open for more websites and if you want to take part of the GTA committee, there will be a screening process to be conducted. Though we’ll reveal more about it once are we are actually open for more websites to join.

So when can we can expect to see the nominees for the GTA?

We will be providing the list of nominees at the end of December, we want to make sure that all of the events for this year were covered.

So will there be any trophies for the winners?

Not trophies, but large golden tickets. Of course if we are going to call ourselves the Golden Ticket Awards, we might as well give a golden ticket to the winners, but they are not entirely made out of gold because of course, we are not Sultans of Dubai to do that.