The 7th Annual Designer Toy Awards Finds a New Home at Five Points Festival & Open Nominations Has Begun!
The annual DESIGNER TOY AWARDS has “traditionally” been held at near the end of a year - at the very least for the last 6 years - tagged to San Diego Comic Con in the beginning, then to New York Comic Con … but THIS year, there is a huge shift, not just “geographically”, but also “timing”! The Designer Toy Awards has announced a brand new home for the prestigious annual DTA ceremony @ Five Points Festival! Taking place May 20th and 21st at Pier 36, in New York City's lower east side, the festival is kicked off by The Designer Toy Awards on Friday, May 19th!
"The antidote to the average con, Five Points brings tastemakers, misfits, and rebels together with the new, retro, and infamous, in a one-of-a-kind gathering. A collision of toys, comics, and counterculture curated by Clutter Magazine and presented by Midtown Comics, Five Points is two days and nights of comic artists and writers, vinyl and plastic toys, original art, resin, plush, blind boxes, graphic novels, indie comics, blanks, minis, kaiju, Japanese vinyl, posters, prints, apparel, food trucks, and craft breweries."
OPEN NOMINATIONS has since begun earlier today (opened on Monday, March 27th, 2017), where YOU can submit your favorite toys and artists from 2016! They need to be first NOMINATED, before being chosen to be the FINALISTS in their respective categories! If it's not nominated, then it cannot be a Finalist, got it?
Head here to www.designertoyawards.com (*You will need to be logged into your account, or create one). Running from now until April 7th (6pm EST).
Nominations will be considered for releases between January 1st, 2016 and December 31st, 2016! (PPST: There is no shame in self-nomination, nominations are private and confidential, so no one need even know).
HOW DO THE AWARDS WORK?
Now in its 7th year, The Designer Toy Awards has honed its process, listening to feedback and adjusting where ever it makes sense. We haven't made any structural changes to the awards process in the past few years, but just to recap, here is how it works:
1. Open Nominations - Call for entries is open for anyone to make a relevant nomination. We rely on these nominations for the awards. These are not published on the website.
2. Nomination Committees - The DTAs host small committees of industry professionals and fans, carefully matched to categories in order to reduce bias, to take the list of nominations and reduce them down to become the Finalists. The committees meet and discuss every entry, using the published list of award criteria to make their selects. These are published on the website as the year's official finalists.
3. Voting - We run two voting blocks:
DTA Panel: Industry professionals make up the DTA panel. They are charged with voting ONCE per category for the winner in the panel voted awards. Each year new panel members are added to keep our list as diverse as possible.
Fan Voted: The public voters get ONE vote per category in the open Fan award. We do look at IP addresses, ISPN Hacks, and email address to reduce voter fraud. Each year we tighten up on potential attempts to "rig" the system.
4. Winners - Winners of each category are determined by the most votes in each category. Clutter, nor The Designer Toy Awards staff, vote in or "choose" the winners.
5. Awards Ceremony - The awards are presented at a ceremony on May 19th, 2017, during the weekend of Five Points Festival.
Source: Clutter Magazine
