2018 Great British Market Awards launched

The Council Chambers in Bridgnorth’s historic Tudor style, 17th Century Town Hall, was the beautiful setting for the launch of the KPR Midlink 2018 Great British Market Awards.

Bridgnorth had been chosen to host NABMA’s Local Council Forum as it was the recipient this year of Best Large Market Town in The Great British High Street Awards. Having also won Best Small Speciality Market at the 2017 Great British Market Awards, it seemed fitting that the 2018 competition should be launched there.

As Graham mentioned in a previous article, there have been some changes to the awards, which have been running for almost ten years. The judges felt that it was time for a  bit of a revamp.

We have introduced a GBMA logo and winners will be able to request a copy to use for their own promotional activity. It was felt that there were too many categories and these have been streamlined from thirteen to ten. One that was removed was the best LYLM campaign as it was felt that the timing didn’t fit so well with the awards and that these activities should form part of the market’s overall promotional activity, by all means, use your LYLM event in your awards application!

On the subject of timing, in order to help with judging and to give applicants more time, the opening date for submissions has been brought forward to 1 July, with the closing date being 30 November. To allow for Christmas Markets, the Best Speciality Market and Best Market Attraction Categories have a closing date of 31 December. The judging panel will then publish shortlists of the three top markets in each section at the beginning of January.

Britain’s Favourite Market will continue with online voting but the top six markets will be subject to a visit from the judging panel, so that we can be satisfied about the status of the winner.

The categories are:

  • Best Large Indoor Market
  • Best Small Indoor Market
  • Best Large Outdoor Market
  • Best Small Outdoor Market
  • Best Community/Parish Market
  • Best Large Speciality Market
  • Best Small Speciality Market
  • Best Wholesale Market
  • Best Food Market
  • Best Market Attraction

(A large market is considered to have 50 or more stalls)
For more details, visit the NABMA website:

https://www.nabma.com/great-british-market-awards/