After months of pandemic-related delays, the Samuel McLeod Business Awards show has a new date
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After being in limbo since its original scheduled celebration back in April, the Samuel McLeod Business Awards (SMBA) now have a set date. The awards will be presented on Feb. 25 on stage at the EA Rawlinson Centre, and will be live-streamed on Prince Albert & District Chamber of Commerce’s YouTube channel that evening at 7 p.m.
The event usually attracts around 300 people, but there will be a limit to 30 people on stage due to COVID-19 guidelines. There were 30 finalists, who will be asked if they would like to attend or to pre-record their acceptance speech.
Chamber CEO Elise Hildebrandt said the chamber’s Plan A is to put on the awards show as “a hybrid” between being on-stage, as well as using livestreaming and pre-recorded videos for the event. Should COVID-19 guidelines change and institute further restrictions, Hildebrandt said the chamber is prepared to run the entire show online to completely eliminate contact between the nominees.
“The show must go on, and it is,” Hildebrandt said. “Before COVID came along, we as the chamber didn’t have a YouTube channel—so if anybody would like to subscribe, we would love it. We’ve developed that and we’ve learned the technological side of things to do this. Technology has become very, very important through COVID and everyday seems to spark a little bit more of why we need to learn it.”
