Award ceremonies have always been a regular fixture on people’s calendars with the likes of the Academy Awards and Laureus World Sports Awards offering a chance for the leading lights in their field to be honoured and praised.

Industry awards are a popular means of drawing the public’s attention to various achievements and present great opportunities for coverage in newspapers, radio, television and the internet.

Ideas Shop’s promotion of the New Zealand Institute of Architects and the Human Resources Institute of New Zealand awards programmes demonstrate how effective such events can be in raising an organisation’s profile.

Last Thursday night, 25 June 2009 it was the turn of the New Zealand property industry to showcase its success stories at a glittering event at Skycity convention centre in Auckland.

Commercial property has of course been a high profile casualty of the global credit crunch with countless developments now stalled or at worst abandoned altogether.

The event organised by the Property Council of New Zealand not only allowed guests to temporarily forget the troubles of the past 12 months, but also pay homage to world-class design and planning.

And the great and the good of New Zealand’s property world were only too happy to raise a glass to the worthy winners, among them Willis Bond & Co’s Chews Lane Precinct development in Wellington, which secured the supreme prize.

The country’s leading architects, planners, developers and engineers all celebrated cutting-edge design and innovation in a range of categories including urban design, green building and retail.

The awards ceremony also served to highlight how vital property is to this country’s economic health and wellbeing with Deputy Prime Minister Bill English at pains to point out that what’s good for property is good for New Zealand.

Congratulations of course must go to the winners, but top marks to the musical and comedy duo the Topp Twins for successfully managing to get every guest up and dancing – if only for 90 seconds.