Sathnam Sanghera: The British Parking Awards

The British Parking Awards

Silence settled over the hotel dining room like heavy snow. The TV screen flickered. The presenter glanced at the shortlist. “And the winner of the 2005 Best New Car Park Award is…” A pause for effect. “Edinburgh International Airport Multi-Storey!”

The audience erupted. The victorious executives sauntered up to collect their prize. They looked thrilled. Actually, I exaggerate: they looked pleased. But they were surely exploding with delight on the inside. After all, it is not every day that you win at the British Parking Awards, “one of the highlights of the parking calendar”, according to the organisers.

I attended the ceremony last Friday to help me decide whether the growth in business awards ceremonies was a good thing or not. My gut feeling was that it was not. For a couple of years, I wrote about the media industry for the FT, a job that regularly required me to attend events such as the Brit Awards, the MTV Europe Music Awards and the D&AD Awards. Invariably, I found these occasions depressing, the sight of overpaid media types congratulating one another being generally sick-making.

In recent years other industries have caught the backslapping bug from the music, film, TV, marketing and newspaper trades. Mark Lloyd, who runs ukindustryawards.com, an online guide to British business prizes, says there are now at least 450 large trade and industry ceremonies in Britain every year. In the US, he says, there can be as many ceremonies in each state.

Whereas, in the twentieth century, we all had 15 minutes of fame, it seems that in the twenty-first we will all win an award. But having only ever attended media ceremonies, I thought I would reserve judgment on the trend until I had more rounded experience.

There was no shortage of non-media awards to choose from: the Furniture Awards, the World Billing Awards and the Pet Slimmer of the Year Awards all looked tempting. Initially, I resolved to attend the Awards Awards, a ceremony set up to recognise the achievements of the awards industry, which was put on for the first time last year. But I couldn’t get hold of the organisers (maybe they have moved on to arranging The Awards Awards Awards), so instead I paid Pounds 94 for a ticket to the fourth annual British Parking Awards.

Things began awkwardly when, arriving at the lunchtime reception at the Victoria Park Plaza Hotel in London and realising I didn’t know anyone in the parking industry or anything about the parking industry, I stood at the bar by myself for 10 minutes.

After a drink I felt brave enough to approach one of the attendees who, by chance, was one of the very few attractive woman in the room. “So then,” I began. “Did you, er, find it easy to park here?”

She looked back at me in a cold, you’re-only-talking-to-me- because-I’m-one-of-the-very-few-attractive-women-in-the-room kind of way and drew attention to the glass of red wine in her hand. She hadn’t driven here. And judging by the amount that everyone else was drinking, neither had anyone else. I lied that there was someone I had to talk to very urgently and scampered away to my lunch table, only to spend another 10 minutes standing by myself.

It eventually transpired that I had been seated between a man who sold ticket machines and a parking attendant. When he had arrived, and as the food began to be served, the ticket machine man remarked: “Parking is the most interesting industry I have ever worked in. It combines elements of construction, policy, employment, technology and innovation.” I almost believed him.

After coffee, it was time for the awards presentation. The chairman of the judges made the obligatory remarks about the standard of entries being higher than ever. “The parking industry gets a bad press, but we have plenty to be proud of,” he added. “The entries for Best Off-Street Operation, in particular, show that parking can be an enjoyable part of a trip.”

The man employed to present the prizes was one Adrian Simpson, a TV motoring journalist whom I hadn’t seen on TV for a while. It wasn’t promising. But as he presented the first award, for Best New Car Park, something unusual happened: I started to enjoy myself at an awards ceremony. I liked the way Simpson didn’t take it very seriously. I liked the fact that there were no speeches.

Yes, the winners of the first award didn’t look overjoyed. But that may have been because they were Scottish. All the other winners were visibly, touchingly ecstatic. It was hard not to get carried away with the emotion of it all. By the time the Employee of the Year Award was given to Jim Short, the lovely 62-year-old parking attendant sitting on my left, I was whooping along with everyone else.

Martin Amis once remarked that the only sayable thing about prizes was: they’re obviously alright if you win them. But I think there is a little more to say about awards than this. Media awards are not alright (unless you win), but non-media award ceremonies are alright. There is something heartening about the under-regarded being treated like stars for a day, even if they are wheel clampers.

I know that, with some organisers charging up to Pounds 350 a head, many awards ceremonies are just money-making exercises. And I know that the celebrities presenting the awards are only there because they are being paid a packet: someone like Graham Norton can expect to pick up Pounds 22,000 for a night’s work presenting prizes. But, in general, the proliferation of award ceremonies is to be applauded.