The first thing I need to address today is this: Yeah, I know it’s the fourth Friday in February, but I got invited to an awards thingy and an after party, so I shifted the monthly MBIP Thirsty-Third Friday to the fourth Friday for this month. I was going to call it the Thirsty-Fourth Friday, but that doesn’t trip off of the tongue the way, The Thirsty-Third Friday does, so we’re just going to have to pretend that this is the third Friday of February and we’ll all just live a little lie.
The second thing I need to address is the awards thingy I got invited to. It’s the annual Addy Awards and it’s presented by AAF Peoria. Here is information on the Addy’s and AAF, please read before you continue so you are aware what’s going on here.
Okay, now that we all know what we’re doing, let’s go to the 2018 Addy Awards at The Warehouse on State.
Here we are at the Warehouse on State, which is a fairly new event and reception center in the downtown Warehouse District here in Peoria. You can read more about it here. Tonight’s Addy Awards has a vaudeville theme, so you’re going to be seeing women in their best flapper gear and gentlemen dressed in 1920’s style, just like John Ingles in his bow tie there! John is greeting people tonight and as always when we mention John, we need to put in the obligatory plug for Smiley Graphix, a business that he and his wife De run and operate. Are you ready? Here it is! Okay, now we can keep moving along!
Everyone attending gets their own key that leads them to their table! I’m not quite sure who this Marty WombacKer fellow is, but I think I’ll take his key and step into the party!
Wow, it looks fantastic in here! Before we start to mingle, let’s make a stop somewhere that’s near and dear to my heart...
The bar! These were two of the friendliest bartenders on the planet and they did a splendid job throughout the evening! Cheers!
Here’s some shots of the Warehouse dining room and reception area. This is a great place and the decor is fabulous!
The top photo are two more members of the Ingles family Shannon and De! De is the Vice-President of AFF and she’s the one who put this whole party together and decorated the place. Great job De and thanks for inviting me! The two women below might be familiar to you regular readers because they’ve both been on the blog before, it’s Colleen Kimball from Technicraft and her sister Lindsey. Colleen, Lindsey and Shannon are the Cigarette Girls for the evening and they handed out candy cigarettes, button and beads to everyone! They look fantastic and did a great job! That handsome and smiling fellow in the last photo is none other that Greg Batton from WMBD’s The Greg and Dan Show. Greg’s the emcee for the awards portion of the evening. Always a pleasure to see him!
The event was sold out and here’s some of the guests posing for the MBIP Camera!
The back wall had tables with some of the advertising and marketing submissions for tonight’s awards. Very impressive display of work there!
Here’s the table I’m seated at, lucky number 13! The guests at the table are from left: John and De, Jessica and Linda from Moxie’s Resale and Bryan, Tom and Nick from Tannins & Hops. Dinner was a buffet catered by Cracked Pepper and it was delicious!
The awards part of the evening is just about to start. There’s Greg with AAF President, Beth Fischer at the podium in the front of the room. As you can see from the awards table, there’s a lot of them to be handed out and Colleen and Lindsey are going to be presenting them to the winners. Okay, the crowd’s all set and I went back to my table to get out of the way as the awards were given to the winners for the evening!
I got a few shots of the Judge’s Choice and Best of Show winners and that’s Chelsie from Lettering Works in the bottom photo, who’s been featured here on MBIP. She won four awards this evening, very impressive! Congratulations to everyone who won, it was a wonderful ceremony!
That was a fun awards dinner and thanks to De and everyone at AAF for putting it on! But the party’s not over yet, Tannins & Hops Speakeasy is hosting an after party, so let’s head over there for a nightcap or four!
John gave me a ride over, so here’s another Smiley Graphix plug in lieu of gas money! We went in, said the password, “I hear this plays in Peoria,” and were granted an entrance into Tannins & Hops Speakeasy! Oh and don’t tell anyone that password, it’s a secret!
Mo Washburn was playing sax and he sounded great! You can check out some of his videos by clicking here.
Of course I had to get the signature drink named after yours fooly, The Wombacher Sour which we enjoyed here on this Thirsty-third Friday celebration from Tannins & Hops! They told me it’s their best selling drink. My former probation officer must be so proud of me! Kyley was working behind the bar and it’s always great to see her!
I ran into two more award winners that I didn’t get a picture of at the dinner, so I took these at the after party! That’s Matt Blick from Magnum Digital Cinema. He was one of the Best of Show winners and he scored the highest points overall. There's my friends from Converse Marketing in the bottom photo and they won a whopping six awards, so congratulations to them! We chatted about how they were the very first place I did the “Can I Eat My Lunch In Here?” segment and we’re going to have a reunion lunch soon, so stay tuned for that!
Here’s some of the folks that came over to the after party from the Addy Awards Dinner! Thanks again to De Ingles, everyone at AAF and to Bryan and everyone at Tannins & Hops for such a fun evening! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
Related Posts: Thirsty-Third Friday @ Olympia Sports Bar & Grill, Mike’s Tavern and Tannins & Hops.