The title of this posting is taken from a very old joke involving a famous musician, who has never been to New York, trying to find Carnegie Hall, the venue for his performance that evening. He asks a curbside busker the question from the title, and their response is "Oh, man - practice, practice, practice."
The 2026 Hugo Awards would certainly have benefitted from that bit of advice, at least based on the plethora of technical issues which punctuated the event: needing Ursula Vernon, who hosted the event, to stretch out her introductory speech to a full 20 minutes of nature trivia while some unknown issue was resolved; doing the In Memoriam section twice because apparently the slide show didn't run the first time*; the charming interpretive dance performed by presenter Tracey Baptiste while waiting about a minute for the Lodestar Award nominees clip to start; starting the Best Fan Artist clip while presenter Tim Kirk was still speaking (with the result that he almost announced the winner before the nominees were listed); and so on and so on.
Mary Robinette Kowal, who presented the Best Novelette Hugo, mentioned that the tech team have to "basically build a television studio in two days, and it's harsh", and I don't argue with that observation for a moment.
Regardless, once the studio is built, it's prudent for the director - there must be a director**, in responsibility if not in name - to take some time to get all of their production ducks in a row: which camera is which in terms of picking the appropriate angles or shots; setting up for audience cutaways when the stage is empty; which button will switch from the camera feed to the computer for pre-recorded acceptance speeches and in memoriam slide shows; and organize their clips so that they can cue up the appropriate nominee announcements and matching category slides over the course of the evening.
It's also prudent to bring the talent together for a rehearsal. Apparently the Oscars do a full dress walk-through the night before the actual event - if they can get a full spectrum of movie stars to rehearse for their event, certainly the Worldcon management could at least get everyone into the auditorium for a quick run through of what's going to happen and when.
I realize that the dictum regarding no battle plan surviving contact with the enemy applies just as much to live presentations as it does to combat, but in both cases, it's a good idea to do everything possible to ensure that as little as possible goes wrong.
So, if any future WorldCon organizers should stumble across this post in a search for advice about how to plan the awards show?
Practice, practice, practice.
- Sid
P.S. I hesitated to post this critique of the awards - as per my comment on the Barbara Hambly livestream, I used to work in the presentation industry, and as such I have a high professional standard, perhaps too much so. But my comment about future Worldcon organizers reading this justifies it. If you're one of those future readers, this is a cautionary tale: a lot of things can go wrong, and the more prep you do, the more that you can minimize issues like the ones listed above.
* I had assumed that only the live stream audience had seen a black screen for the first attempt, but apparently it was a larger problem than that.
** After all, the ceremony was held in Los Angeles, how hard could it be to find someone who wants to direct?
