It is now currently common to have an awards ceremony after the last round and to give out trophies/plaques/awards for different levels of achievement. We have evolved to this point from where in the early days all you got was a write up in the local postal 'zine or maybe a paper certificate. Further we have evolved to have some different awards other than Winner with top 7 being acknowledged, as well as the introduction of Best Country Awards (started in 1976). Along the way the hobby picked up the passion for awards such as Golden Blade, Hammered, Dead Meat as well as a smattering of voted awards for Player's Player, Best Diplomat, Tactician and Strategist. Some things have been tried and discarded, such as a Golden Bottle Award.

However, all of these have the same pattern of presentation, in that at the end of the last round of the last day when mostly only the hard core players are left, are they awarded. When I was living in Belgium a long time ago, I saw briefly an indoor bicycle contest; nothing is more boring than a bunch of people going around in a circle on bicycles, except maybe watching Cricket, without beer, on a hot muggy day. However, in the middle of it there would be an announcement that the winner of the next Lap would get a free dinner at Bruno's Pub or an AM/FM portable radio (a fad and prized item at the time...like I said, this was a real long time ago), and suddenly there would be some excitement and cheering as there would be a sprint for the lap prize.

In addition to the concept of interim goal prizes, I wanted to bring in participation in the prizes to those more casual attendees that may play only one round and then go on to something else, or only have one day to play. It is common in the San Francisco events of Conquest/Avalon over Labor Day Weekend and Kubla Con over Memorial Day to have 40 or so players, but only half of them will play more than 1 round, since there are a lot of new comers and they are recruiting events. I also wanted to break the rut intensity of some of the rounds that the hardcore tournament players can fall into when there is nothing to diffuse the competition. In short, I wanted to shift things from a Diplomacy Tournament to a Diplomacy Party and Tournament

Using the first stand alone Diplomacy Tournament in the SF Bay Area (Nov. 2004) as a testing ground, I went and added a whole bunch of ideas to the event to create a more festive atmosphere, by getting players more involved with the spirit of a community event. This is what was done in detail:

1. Score Board
   Players were polled with their registration:
   
   A. What province would have the most units destroyed (popped)
   B. How many home supply centers would be taken in 1901?
   C. What would be the ranking of countries by total supply center count?
   
   I posted a sheet with the provinces listed by the players (of 25 players, some 17 initial provinces were guessed). Then each turn players would rush out and draw a skull and cross bones on the line for the provinces as destroyed or add it if not listed. It was quite a cheering section at times as units were destroyed and people from all over would go to the list to put their mark on the list.
   In the future I should put the list of home centers taken also, but the Death Provinces seemed to be a rather good technique to get people to jump around and cheer. Two units retreating to Livonia killing /popping each other was a cheer. It also became a boasting point for the most unexpected place to have a destruction: Barents Sea.
   
2. Instant Prizes
   I had a collection of risqué Scandal Card Decks and would give out a deck when people would do something especially scandalous such as a big stab or a big lie or some other scandalous behavior. However this can be accomplished by any number of gag gifts.
   We had some old comic books: Ironman, Avenger, Green Lantern, Cracked, Mad magazine etc. During the course of the games as various appropriate things were achieved, we would hand it out right there at the adjudication for all to see. For example Jake Mannix after his spectacular miss-order in Fall of 01 as Turkey: Arm->Bul, Bla C Arm->Bul, Bul S Arm->Bul, when Rumania was clearly desired got the 'Cracked' magazine award right on the spot.

   I had some old games (D-Day and Waterloo) to give out, and these I did not tell players what they were for so as not to have an effect on the play of the games, which is an important part to making the prize structure that the prize chairmen have to be aware of.
   For the D-Day game I gave it to the first English player to land an Army in Brest/Picardy in Fall 1901. For the Waterloo game I gave it to a French player that owned more of England than he did of France, figuring fighting the English and abdicating France was appropriate. The later player was thrilled with it and it made his event, and even though eventually he would end up as France with units only in Liverpool and London, he had a great memory and a surprise.

3. Titles
Before the games started we had a series of titles posted for the first achievers. As soon as it was accomplished the player's name got on the list. Prizes were not awarded, but titles or badges are something that could be arranged for a future enhancement of the idea (…hmmm maybe funny hats to be worn temporarily):

All of this lent itself to a more festive event and was welcomed by the players. The ideas can be expanded upon, over done and then tailored back, but the ideas of turning prizes into surprises is a good thing, and the awarding of instant prizes for things expected and unexpected is also a good thing.

Try it, you'll like it.