Julie Barrett is a freelance writer and photographer based in Plano, TX.

About Last Night

Fresh when it gets here from Julie Barrett
Sunday, August 23, 2015


Congratulations to all the 2015 Hugo Award winners!

I wasn't going to stay up and watch, but I couldn't tear myself away. And no, that's not a train wreck analogy. Instead, I was genuinely curious to see who won, and how many rockets Noah Ward might take home. I'm glad I stuck around to hear Robert Silverberg and Connie Willis. And the Best Novel award being presented from the ISS? Priceless.

It's difficult to critique the ceremony without reference to the cloud hanging over the awards this year, but I think I can do it without getting political. Yep, I have my opinions, but this is about the ceremony. Having produced a ceremony one year, I know first hand all about the technical issues that go on behind the scenes, stuff rehearsed multiple times that misfires, you name it. 

This is the stuff of a live performance. It's easy to sit in the back and critique what went wrong or why they did this instead of that, but considering what was hanging over them this year, they came through with flying colors. The people running the ceremony - and this includes the emcees - have no idea who the winners are going to be. Considering the very real possibility of several No Award votes, they had some serious logistics to figure out. There were five categories in which no award was presented. Think about that for a minute. Yes, the still have to read the nominee list out, but no acceptance speeches, no sustained bursts of applause as someone makes their way out of the audience to the stage, and so on. Would people have felt cheated if the ceremony had been shorter? No doubt some would have. 

I'm glad I'm Sunday morning quarterbacking this thing instead of giving a knee-jerk reaction. Did stuff go wrong? Yep. (We had our share of missteps, too, and some were downright embarrassing. No finger-pointing from this quarter.) But again, that's the nature of live performances, particularly things like award ceremonies that have so many unscripted moments. But the knee-jerk part of me was also reacting to things outside of their control. That's because it's (one more time) a live show and it's easy to sit back and point fingers.

But this one had many purely fannish moments such as the opening bit and the Dalek helping to present the Best Dramatic Presentation awards. David Gerrold and Tananarive Due did a great job of keeping the ceremony light-hearted. 

So y'all done good. Get some rest.



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