The 24th IER Awards took place at the 5* Royal Chelsea Harbour Hotel in London on Tuesday 22 March. Describing it as the ‘best yet’, guests enjoyed a champagne reception, followed by a sumptuous three course meal with fine wine.
The evening was opened by Bob Mills, a stand-up comedian and writer who has a string of acclaimed TV & radio shows to his credit, including the late-night cult show In Bed With MeDinner, in which he commented on documentary video footage. Bob has also hosted on ITV’s daytime game show Win Lose Or Draw, as well as LWT’s There’s Only One Brian Moore and Dial Midnight, plus Not A Lot Of People Know That for BBC1.
Bob also wrote the six-part comedy-drama Northern Lights, an episode of Channel 4’s Shameless and the 2006 film Pierrepoint that starred Timothy Spall as Britain’s last hangman.
Bob was joined on stage by industry favourite Richard Stevenson who, with help from IER editor Gregor Muir, presented each of the awards for outstanding performance. Winners on the night included Dacombes of Wimborne, Avensys Limited, Chapman’s Electrical, Built In Kitchen Appliances, Stellisons, Purewell Electrical, Wellingtons Electrical and Domestic Supplies in the retailer categories; together with LG, Stoves, Samsung, Smeg, KitchenAid, Electrolux, Peerless AV, Hotpoint, Whirlpool, Indesit, Bauknecht, Roberts Radio’s Gerry Kehoe, and Retra & T21 in the manufacturer categories.
Sirius Buying Group chairman Gordon Jones received the Contribution to the Industry award.
Gregor commented: “The IER Awards play an important role in driving innovation and increasing standards of excellence within our sector. It gets more and more competitive every year, reflecting what is going on in the industry. ”
Full information on each of the winners is available on the dedicated IER Awards website, along with all the photos!
The charity heads and tails fundraiser was also a success, with over £600 being donated to Demelza House, a charity which supports children and young people who have life threatening or life limiting conditions. The charity’s mission is to provide specialist care and support to babies, children, young people and the whole family from diagnosis, during day to day family life, times of crisis, end of life and through bereavement. The winners of the heads and tails competition also received a bottle of champagne.
The night was rounded off with music and dancing from rock and blues band The Beatin’ Hearts.
Special projects and events manager Linda Dorling said: “This year’s IER Awards was a huge success. All who attended congratulated the team on the venue, and whole organisation of an event which they all enjoyed immensely; the question is …how do we top this at the 25th Anniversary event to be held in 2017….date and venue to be disclosed soon!”