Every now and then you get adult prom moments, where you get dressed up and party in a civilized fashion. Be they weddings, graduations, associations or company functions. This weekend was the Chillies, and it was fucking great. Great cause the company was good, but also cause it’s an advertising event, and advertisers basically party professionally. I had a ticket to a table with my whole department from Dialog, but tons of my friends were there as well. There were bottles on the table, a decent buffet and you could smoke in the convention center. Not that I could especially sauced, just enough to get through the slightly dull awards to the point where people are dancing on chairs and taking ridiculous photographs. And not to grate, but Colombo does and will go on. Sri Lanka does keep going, and it’s still a fun place to live. Maththa Thitha is kind of taking a shitter on the scene, but business, art, life and love will go on.
As an intro, the Chillies is an advertising awards show that started last year. It’s notable in that they don’t award prizes for every category, only if the stuff is up to international benchmark. Not that Sri Lanka is anywhere close, but they bring in judges and I think the event is necessary to prevent the lethargy of low standards. Sri Lankan ads routinely have glaring typos and horribly pixelated images and it’s easy to set the bar low. As such, Chillies are a good thing. Triad and Grant’s dominated this time (I thinks), and deservedly. I’ve worked with Grant’s PR and they’re cool, and Triad is honestly fucking incredible. They do a lot of work in Sinhala and the Sri Lankan idiom which is high qual and original, including (I think) a lot of SLFP stuff and Mahinda materials. Which is to say, I think they do some work for a hollow cause, but it’s good work. I think Leo Burnett was also up there. I forgets.
Before
That’s the content, but the form is basically a bunch of high creatives and clients and managers cheering on their fellows. From the start of the night people are whistling and hooting because it is, after all, a group of friends. Freaking large group though. The Colombo Convention Centre was literally packed with tables, like no room to move. They kept like 1/4 empty so everyone could see the stage, but it was freaking full. I guess the Grammys would be like this if they weren’t so bloody serious. Here it just took like 30 minutes for people to stop looking proper and to move around, stand on tables, chairs, etc. After the awards Bathiya and Santush performed, which was a velly good show. From then on they were just blasting pretty good music and everyone was having a good time.
And After
Bathiya and Santush
After the party it’s the afterparty, at H20. The Vitz is full of people and it can’t even make it up the hill without us getting out. I, of course, am not driving being in no shape to. You seriously can’t fuck around anymore, we got pulled over twice that night, once by Air Force (nice guys) and once by police. License, registration and step out of the car. H20 was a bit of a sausage fest and I think they should’ve just continued at the Convention Center, but what to do. Switch to water. Go to a hotel party. Sober up. Go home.
Here are a few other photos I liked, they’re on Flickr (flickr.com/photos/indi) now, I’ll tag them as Chillies when I get around to it.
Rare decent shot of me, Twiggy and Sarah. Not in that order.
Sarah, guess will find out if she minds posting it. No flash, low light, rare natural moment
“License, registration and step out of the car”
haha, that sounds as if it’s from Jay-Z’s and Linkin Park’s song 99 Problems!!
pwetty sad that i couldnt make to this event.. damn to my exams :(
What was really great was that the Chillies night wasn’t just a one-nighter. The whole week running up was packed with judging, workshops, and jury forums. And parties practically every night. So unlike it was back at the SLIMmies, you got this great festival feel whichh builds up the excitement for the night. Oh, and being a judge this time was a blast too. A real eye-opener to hear the foreign judges voice what many of us Creatives have been sayying for years.
Hey Indi, Leo did better than Grants (sadly). They bagged the most number of awards. Guess you were too sloshed to remember ;-)
The awards we’re freaking boring. I honestly can’t remember shit about them. I seem to remember someone getting more total awards than Triad, but still being on top. The only thing I’d change is to show the actual artwork, or maybe even print the candidates in the brochure. I had a good time, but I can’t say that I saw any inspiring work.
Isn’t it always boring when someone else is winning? I’m sure the top-scoring creative teams didn’t find it boring. But you’re right about not being inspired. As one of the print judges, nothing really blew me away, though the MoD graffitti came close.
I just meant that as a guest I didn’t really get to see any ads. The presentation was just the names of the top candidates, then the reading of the winners, and maybe a 5 second glimpse of an ad. Don’t think it’s that hard to actually ‘show’ the candidates to the audience.
All the finalists or ‘nominees’ had been up at the exhibition since Wednesday, so most agency people had seen ’em. I guess they could’ve flashed them on as they were announced (like they used to at the SLIMs), but it might have gone on longer then. The last SLIM I went for was about 4-5 hours long! But there’s a coffeetable-type book expected, which will have all the finalists in it.
Twiggy’s got a nice nose.
Was that graffiti really done by Triad? I don’t think so? I was under the impression it was put up by the same people who paint the streets where bombs go off (not affiliated with the government), while Triad just put up a board there and took all the credit.
The newspaper caption at the time said that the graffiti was painted by a commercial artist, hired by the MoD. Since Triad is the ad agency for the MoD, it would have been done through them. Also, the entry for the Chillies was for the graffiti and the poster. The judges thought the poster ruined the whole effect and was the reason the entry didn’t get more than a Gold in Integrated.