Pink cocks away!

This just in from Dan Ilett of Greenbang fame. . . (and last year's Flackenhack freelance of the year winner, if we recall correctly):

I'll get to work finding out how to make paper-mache cocks (in pink).

It's a reference to trophies, dear reader. Trophies fashioned in the likeness of our mighty logo.

Last year, we bestowed upon the winners some fine tokens sourced at great expense from The People's Republic Of Tat.

This year, Mr Ilett believes he can fashion us something environmentally-friendly out of glue, a bit of pink paint and some old newspapers.

Sounds fitting. But we wonder: will he need a model or a mould of some sort?

If this sounds like the modelling opportunity you've been waiting for, please get in touch with dan[AT]greenbang[DOT]com attaching a photographic likeness that can be judged for scale (perhaps by including a hand in the frame).

Tickets are go!

Laydeees and gentlemens. . .

Tickets forTheFlackenhacks are now ON SALE.

Here.

Adopt-A-Hack Auction: The First 20 Auctions

Okey-doke. So we've got someone's authoritative-looking press list and here are the first 20 names.

Unless someone gives us good reason, these are the hacks for whom we'll start auctioning off Flackenhacks tickets on EBay from Wednesday.

We've got more names. But we thought you might have some thoughts, too.

If so, go here. It's a Google Docs spreadhseet where you can add as many suggested names as you like. (No need to log in or any silly malarky like that. It's just sitting there, open on the web).

If you add 'em, we'll invite them and auction tickets for 'em. . .

Toodle-pip!

Grab a Flackenhacks hack ticket

Grab a Flackenhack hack ticket...

Two members of The Flackenhack Awards 2008 organising committee gathered the other night for a Kronenbourg-fuelled brainstorm around some of the important bits of this year's do. One subject that came up was tickets for hacks, and how to handle them.

Now, bless 'em, our friends in the media aren't used to buying themselves tickets for industry events. But we think that having as many hacks along to the event as we can possibly manage is quite important...at least that's what feedback from last year's awards told us.

Thing is, we can't just chuck them all a freebie 'cause it will cost us a fortune. Those hacks might have deep pockets and short arms, but they can certainly reach the bar...

So, we've had an idea. And we think it's a cracker.

On the way to the pub, we found a pretty comprehensive UK IT media list that someone had left on the tube.

Not sure who. Bite perhaps. Or Rainier (who have a history of that sort of thing). Anyway, no matter. It looks up to date. So, what we're going to do is this.

We're going to stick a Flackenhacks ticket for each of the hacks listed on eBay! And then we'd like you lot – the great and the good of the UK tech PR agency world – to bid for them.

As an incentive to bid (and to give this at least a veneer of respectability) we'll be donating 50% of the money raised through the auctions to Byte Night.

Starting price will be low, obviously, but who knows how high it might get for the more popular hacks, eh?

We're also a bit curious about which hacks' tickets are going to remain unsold at auction end. . .

Perhaps we'll need to publish a Hack Popularity Index after the auction.

It goes without saying that hacks are more than welcome to bid for their own tickets, obviously -- although we don’t expect a lot of that to go on.

From next Wednesday, therefore, if you go here, you'll see who is for sale. As it were. . .

Happy bidding!

The Flackenhacks: Update

Afternoon all!

Time for a wee update. As Twitter followers will know, The Flackenhacks 2008 has now got a date and a venue:

7pm, Wednesday 29 October 2008

at The Village Underground, 54 Holywell Lane, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3PQ

We are very, very chuffed with The Village Underground. Not only does it have tube train carriages on the roof, it's only a few minutes from tube stations at Liverpool Street and Old Street (as you can see here).

Oh, and it's got room for 300+ people. We've posted a few more pictures of the venue here, at Flickr.

The tube train carriages on the roof turn out to be important. They've been converted into offices. And inside those offices a whole bunch of people work -- including the graffiti artists who will hopefully reinterpret The Flackenhacks' logo for us on the night.

As in: 20ft tall, spray-painted at the front entrance. We suspect you'll be unable to miss us if you tried. . .

Here at Flackenhacks HQ, we're now working flat out on preparations. Here's some of what's happening:

• Axicom and NixonMcInnes have signed up as 2008 sponsors. We've got advanced conversations going with half-a-dozen other potential sponsors. If you're interested, please get in touch soon -- at this rate, we'll be running out of space soon.
  
  
• Compere Paul Wooding and DJ John Ozimek have signed up to do their respective business at this year's event. . .
  
  
• Ticket sales will start this week. If you buy tickets during the next fortnight or so, we'll be offering an Early Monkey discount. Keep your eyes peeled. . .
  
  
• This year, we hope more of our friends from the Fourth Estate will join us. To this end, we'll be encouraging you to bid on EBay to buy cheap tickets on behalf of 60 of the world's leading tech hacks. 50% of the takings will go to Byte Night. More anon. . .
  
  
• In the next fortnight or so, we'll be holding a Flackenhacks Social in Shoreditch. We'll take a nose around the venue before retiring somewhere across the road to contemplate our awards shortlist. Anyone and everyone interested in The Flackenhacks will be welcome to join us. . .

Campaigning on a single issue. . .

Seems to be something of a trend these days, no? 

As you’ll have seen below, a truly motley crew from the UK’s tech PR industry gathered in the pissing rain a couple of weeks ago to mull over whether a second stab at The Flackenhack Awards is worth the trouble.

The general consensus? Yes, of course it bloody is.

Not only was The Flackenhacks a mighty good night out, we must not forget the original motivation behind the organisation of an alternative awards ceremony for the tech PR industry: that the PRWeak Awards have become an poor quality, over-priced, irrelvant cash cow for Haymarket Publishing and the industry deserves something better, cheaper and less stuffy.

This remains the case. The PRWeak Awards - should you want a well-positioned table for 10 and haven’t booked by this Friday - will cost you £380 (plus VAT) per person. Without wine (and the wine ain’t cheap…).

Coming to last year’s Flackenhack Awards would’ve set you back £65. OK, so we didn’t sit you down for a three-course dinner, but there was a bit to nibble on and enough free booze to make sure you got hammered. And we didn’t bore you with an overly long awards ceremony (beautifully compered by Paul Wooding).And we had a decent DJ. And we gave 10% of ticket sales toByte Night (I don’t see Haymarket doing that). And the venue was close to the tube. And we had a big pink cock as a logo.

Sure, we made a small profit. It just about funded a taxi home (honestly). But that didn’t matter. It was a fucking good laugh and entirely worthwhile.

From our night down the pub we’ve asembled a crack team of people to help organise this year’s Flackenhacks. If you’re interested in helping, sponsoring or attending (when we get any details sorted we’ll let you know) you can email us at: theflackenhacks@gmail.com. You can follow The Flackenhacks on Twitter here and there’s a Facebook group here.

I’m hearing on the industry grapevine that a number of agency CEOs are really beginning to question the true value of the PRWeak Awards, if for no other reason than it represents dismal value for money.  Anyone out there willing to stand up and publicly boycott..?

[Cross-posted from TWL]

Flackenhack'd on a rainy night in Soho

Thanks to the 20-odd rather damp lunatics who joined us in the Dog & Duck last night.

Apart from surprising Mark Mellor in a cubicle in the men's loo, what did we achieve?

Well, fairly clearly, we're going to have to do this here Flackenhacks thing again in October. Which is a lovely prospect, even if we say so ourselves.

Paul Wooding is up for compering again. John Ozimek will be DJ once again. Dom Whitehurst & Co. will be helping out social media-wise.

There was some enthusiasm for a less "corporate" venue (fab though the Audi Forum was). When I mentioned it, people quite liked the idea of Secret Cinema's approach.

Patrick Smith suggested live voting using a clapometer (Hughie Green vintage, hopefully).

Presumably, we'll be voting for least favourite media outlet. . .so we'll have to call it something like an abuse-o-meter. (There's got to be a better name for it -- let us know what it is.)

Via email, Paul Wooding offers the idea of guests voting on non-PR categories by holding up cut-outs of The Flackenhacks logo. A show of pink cocks, as it were.

Patrick also suggested that we should do a Flackenhacked version of the Bilderberg Group in a country house hotel. (Is the world ready for this?)

The spectacularly altruistic Phil Muncaster suggested an award for hairstyle of the year. (Yeah, cheers, Phil.)

On ticket prices, we had suggestions ranging from £35 (battered sausage thrown in for free) to £65 (same as last year). TWL reckons price isn't an issue. But then, he would.

Most importantly. . . we're up and running. Our next job is to spend a few weeks talking with potential sponsors.

We'll report back at some point in the near future. Maybe another social will be required.

Next time, though, we promise to find somewhere with a bar and sufficient contiguous space for all of us on one floor. . .

Talk soon.