Hall of Fame awards often get a mixed reaction from the martial arts community that range from people moaning about having to pay to attend to people being delighted at being invited along to such a special event. However, good or bad it does have more advantages than people give them credit for.
Some years ago I attended a Hall of Fame event that was held by a well known magazine at the time. Sadly not published anymore. The event was a smart jacket and tie job with all the guys booted and suited, as they say, and all the ladies looking brilliant but I was somewhat puzzled as to why there were ‘door men’ manning the doors? At first I thought maybe with all those experts in combat in the room they were concerned that it would turn into a violent affair, but of course, that thought only stayed with me for less than half a second. Although if such a thing were to happen my concerns would be with those poor doormen having to sort such a thing and having to take on all those high kicking people. Anyway joking to one side it turned out to be a very good humoured and polished affair with people going up on stage to have their award presented to them and photographers on hand waiting to capture the moment. Award events of this nature do play a part in the martial arts community both as a social gathering, a business opportunity and a recognition event. The award itself of course is a form of recognition within the martial arts community for past efforts, or for ongoing work, but such an event also offers the chance for people in the martial arts to meet up and talk about what they do and maybe, as an added bonus, conduct a bit of future business as a result. It also offers the chance to socialise in an informal and relaxed way which is something many people in the martial arts very rarely get the chance to do on such a large scale in just one room. Although many involved in the competition circuit meet up at regular periods it does not offer the same true chance to be informal and socialise in a relaxed way, as Hall of Fame awards do, as such events are all about winning the event of course and not having a pint and talking about if it will rain tomorrow or not. Some Hall of Fame events are based on being nominated by a governing body of some kind and the entire event could be just based on one person only but holding multiple awards at the same time does make for an interesting and diverse evening when the room is filled with so many people from all walks of life and all having differing martial art backgrounds. The thing about martial art Hall of Fame events is that it sounds all so posh and upper class in nature, which of course it’s not. Such a posh title reminds me of those all glam and glitz award shows that the film and show business industry puts on every year. With such an elite posh sounding name it tends to give itself a problem. That problem being it generates high expectations in the minds of those going along to one of those martial art award events for maybe the first time. In reality of course it is far from that. I have attended a few in my time, and also did a few official write up reviews by request, and I am far from posh. The range of comments regarding those Hall of Fame events clearly shows that some are not well organised and can rightly be called a rip off while others really do make the effort and it shows the moment you walk in the door. The price of such events are pricey but compared to taking the family to the cinema and watching a boring film then the cost involved is no different in the end. Are Hall of Fame events just a money making rip off? Well that totally depends on how you look at it and what you get out of it. As for myself I can truly take them or leave them, but I do get something out of them most of the time to a degree. Getting such an award does look good on your martial art CV and it can help to give credibility to what you do. Sadly however some get those awards without any merit at all and that does lower such events in a negative way. Being a down to Earth bog standard type of person I am for sure not into all that brown nosing carry on, as the old saying goes, but I do love to meet up with people in the trade who I would never get to meet normally and use such events for that reason. For me the award itself is not the main thing but thinking of it, and using it as a social event, is how I treat it all. Some say they are not worthy to attend such events but again that is down to the illusion of the posh name. Many also think that they have been nominated by others to attend such events but that is not always the case. The word ‘nominate’ is just another way of saying, invited. Many are over the moon to be invited to such events for the first time and think of it as a great honour but fail to realise that they are paying for it. However in all fairness organisers of such events do need to make a profit, more so when you take into account the costs involved and all the time and effort it takes to set such events up. And if it all goes wrong then they stand to lose a lot of money. As with any business venture there are big risks involved. Are Hall of Fame awards worth it? That totally depends on what you want to get out of it and how you treat it all in your mind. I don’t treat such events as an award event as such but more a case of a social gathering and having a few beers. A simple night out in other words with the chance to get booted and suited and for the ladies to show off their new frocks for the occasion. On a final note I have had Hall of Fame awards in the past that did not even involve attending an awards event. I had one certificate sent to me in the post for example, (no, not one of those email attachment jobs), that came all the way from the USA to me here in the UK. That was for my written contributions to an online martial arts magazine at the time. This article is an updated version that was first published in 2015. For a related article click >HERE< Comments are closed.
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