The Loerie Awards MD, Andrew Human, has confirmed that some of the awards results were leaked and that “action” had been taken internally. “The information is not available online anywhere, it was put up erroneously… I accept full responsibility as CEO of The Loerie Awards.”
While being clearly a monumental stuff-up that led to the list of supposed winners for the Saturday and Sunday night awards, 28 and 29 July 2007, being emailed around the industry today, Friday, 27 July – even as many were flying into Margate for the festival weekend – Human speaking from a beautiful sunny and warm Margate, said that while this was not a positive event, he did admit that rather “a frenzy” around the winners than no one giving a toss at all about the awards results.
Prior to 2005 when The Loerie Awards were relaunched and relocated to Margate, it was an open secret in the industry every year as to who the winners were, as the industry judges from the various agencies all knew the results. Some level of surprise has been maintained since then.
Finance Week's Tony Koenderman, who broke the story, said the list was circulating “like wildfire” through the industry:
www.fin24.co.za/articles/default/display_article.aspx?Nav=ns&ArticleID=1518-1786_2154651
