Do you know, I've been feeling a bit bad about being quite so cruel about the Q Awards earlier this week, because I'm sure they'll be great - there just did seem to be a bit of a sponsor overload. And, while we are all for sponsorship supporting great music projects, when the publicity gets swamped with logos it can start to damage the credibility of the event which, presumably, was the reason why the brands wanted to get involved in the first place.
Getting all the balances right last night were the much more grass roots yet really rather huge UK Festival Awards, which staged an awards ceremony for the first time this year. This, of course, is the annual poll on the best events and performances in the British music festival calendar - and do you know, over a million people voted this year, which is pretty damn huge.
In terms of artists, Muse stole the show, winning in two categories - Best Rock Act and Best Headline Act - while The Kooks, The Streets, The Prodigy and Girls Aloud took the Best Breakthrough, Best Urban, Best Dance and Best Pop Act prizes respectively. Primal Scream were named the Festival Feel-Good Act.
Festivals wise, T In The Park, Bestival and Summer Sundae won in their respective size categories, while the End Of The Road Festival won the Best New Festival prize, the Isle Of Skye Festival was named the most Fan-Friendly Festival and the Larmer Tree Festival took the gong for Best Toilets. Meanwhile Mean Fiddler boss Melvin Benn was presented with Outstanding Contribution To Festivals prize.
Steve Jenner of Virtual Festivals, who stage the awards, told reporters: "The UK has the greatest festival scene in the world, and we thought it was about time someone stepped up to honour the people who make it happen. Judging by tonight's turn out, it was wonderful to see that the music industry was in agreement. The fact that over 1,000,000 votes were cast during the 100% public vote further underlined how passionately music fans care about our festival scene, and proves the integrity that the UK Festival Awards have come to represent. It is an absolute privilege to bring these awards, the first of their kind, to the UK. We look forward to the UK Festival Awards being a regular fixture on the music calendar."
The full list of winners goes all like this:
Best New Festival: End Of The Road Festival
Best Breakthrough Act: The Kooks
Best Innovation: The Carling Cold Beer Amnesty
Best Dance Act: The Prodigy
Best Pop Act: Girls Aloud
Best Family Festival: Guilfest
Best One Day Festival: Monsters Of Rock
Best Toilets: Larmer Tree Festival
Party People Award For Dance Music: Lovebox
Fan-Friendly Festival: Isle of Skye Festival
Best Urban Act: The Streets
Best Rock Act: Muse
Festival Feel-Good Act: Primal Scream
Best Grass Roots Festival: Beautiful Days
Most Memorable Moment: Radiohead finishing their V Festival headline set with the long hibernated 'Creep'
Anthem of the summer: Arctic Monkeys "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor"
Shelter Award for Most Socially Responsible Festival: Sunrise Summer Solstice Celebration
Best Headline Act: Muse
Best Small Festival: The Summer Sundae Weekender
Best Medium-To-Large Festival: Bestival
Best Major Festival: T in the Park
Outstanding Contribution To Festivals: Melvin Benn