The Beer & Ideas Appreciation Society event at Vancouver’s Steel Toad brewpub.
The Lotus Awards were cancelled this year, but Vancouver’s creative community still celebrated great work.
On Nov. 12, 350 people attended The Beer & Ideas Appreciation Society event put on by Vancouver agency 123w.
“One of the challenges in Vancouver is there’s not that many industry events,” said Scot Keith, founder, president and CEO at 123w. “When we found out [the Lotus Awards] wasn’t happening, we thought, we don’t have enough time and we have no interest in running an award show, so let’s do something different just to celebrate creativity.”
The event, held at the new Steel Toad brewpub, brought together people from the advertising, design and digital world, as well as muralists, directors, photographers, illustrators, editors and more. Ticket-holders were invited to submit up to three pieces of work, and a reel of everyone’s work was played on a 19-foot HD screen and on monitors throughout the venue.
Keith said the event was not “anti-award show;” it’s meant to celebrate the hard work people put into their craft and showcase creativity that may not fit in a typical award show format.
For example, “We did something that we’re super proud of for 7-11: we actually re-created the Slurpee machine,” he said. “Where you would put that in [an awards show]? But that’s one of our most enjoyable projects this year.”
The event was also meant to disrupt the old-school thinking that agencies are all competitors. “A hockey game is a competition, a spelling bee is a competition,” said Keith. “Advertising is not necessarily a competition. You do compete once in a while but for the most part, there’s just so many opportunities to collaborate with other great people.”
