How I organised Europeโs first Emoji Spelling Bee ๐ค๐๐
On Wednesday 29th March I hosted Europeโs first Emoji Spelling Bee. ๐ค๐๐๐ช๐บ
Based upon the events organised by the group of people behind Emojicon (which you can read about here), Europeโs premier foray into competitive emoji spelling saw 17 people from across the continent do battle within The Black Sheep โซ๐ bar on Capel Street in Dublin, Ireland. Ahead of this I ended up being featured across a range of Irish TV ๐บ and radio ๐ป programmes to promote this event (you can see/hear some of these here, here and here).
As per the first two contests, we had a panel of judges assessing the spellings that participants concocted for the idioms, aphorisms, parables and phrases they were presented with (the prompts). Our judges were Irish comedians Blรกithรญn de Burca and Ruth Hunter, as well as myself as the eventโs organiser. Again, as per the original contest, judging was intended to be based on parsimony, whimsy and accuracy, although certain somewhat long-winded spellings did end up winning approval from the judges.
During the contest the prompts were circulated by emailing ๐ง each participant with a link to a Google Form (see an example here), through which the participants submitted their spellings within a strict(ish) timeframe โณ of 3 minutes. After a non-competitive demo and four qualifying rounds, we began our head-to-head quarterfinals. Those successful in the quarterfinals advanced into the semifinals and, following another head-to-head to determine our bronze medallist ๐ฅ, we had a best-two-out-of-three contest to determine our winner. ๐ฅ
In the end, our winner was Sean Russ from Bad Nauheim, Germany ๐ฉ๐ช. He defeated Aisling Horan from Newport, Ireland ๐ฎ๐ช 2โ0 in the finals to claim the title of Europeโs first Emoji Champion ๐๐ฅ๐ and the prize of a โฌ100 ๐ฏ๐ถ One4All gift voucher. As well as that, all quarterfinalists received a free burrito ๐ฏ voucher from Mexican restaurant chain Boojum and all semifinalists received a large emoji teddy featuring some somewhat creepy arms and legs. ๐๐ฃ๐ฑ
You can see all the answers from our spelling bee by clicking here, but please find below some of the best answers to two of theโpromptsโ our participants were presented with.
Yes Equality:
๐๐ป๐๐ป๐๐ป๐๐ป๐๐ฉ๐ผ๐ฑ๐ป๐ซ๐ญ๐ฌ๐๐จโโค๏ธโ๐โ๐จ๐ฉโโค๏ธโ๐โ๐ฉ๐ช๐ฉโ๐ฉโ๐งโ๐ฆ๐จโ๐จโ๐งโ๐ฆ๐ฉ๐ฟ๐จ๐ฟ๐ช๐ป
๐ฌ๐๐ญ
Irish People Try American Snacks:
๐จ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ป๐ฑ๐ปโโ๏ธ๐ต๐ป๐ถ๐ผ๐๐๐๐๐ซ๐ฌ๐บ๐ธ๐ท
๐จ๐ฎ๐จโ๐จโ๐ฆโ๐ฆโก๏ธ๐
๐บ๐ธ ๐ ๐๐ฉ
Thanks to:
- Jenny 8. Lee, Neal Mueller and everyone behind Emojicon and the original Emoji Spelling Bee events for inspiring and blessing this event.
- Brendan Rice for assisting with event preparation and both Cole Delaney and Aine Lambe for assisting with logistics on the night.
- Blรกithรญn de Burca and Ruth Hunter for assisting me with judging.
- One4All and Boojum for providing prizes.
- EmojiOne for being our recommended emoji rendering / app provider.
Interested in organising an Emoji Spelling Bee of your own? Hereโs some tips and recommendations!
- Itโs obvious, but make sure your venue has (#1) a working projector ๐ฝwith a decent length cable (e.g. HDMI) and (#2) reliable wifi ๐ถ! We had a few issues with our wifi connectivity early in the event and, while we rose above them, they ideally should have been avoided! ๐
- Contact local entertainment / pop culture news media ๐บ๐ป๐ฐabout the event via a press release. Emojis are a popular light / entertaining topic for many news sources, so itโs worth a shot to see if you could get some free promotion โ I had no expectations when I began issuing my press release, but ended up on national radio and TV! ๐ฒ
- Use Google Drive ๐๐ to circulate your prompts / collect participantsโ spellings. Itโs easy to use and, best of all, free with a Gmail account. Email links to Google Forms the participants to submit their spellings and have your projector screen displaying the Google Sheet link to each form (make sure to HIDE the email address column so the judges wonโt be biased by knowing who submitted which spelling until after theyโve made their selection). ๐
- Iโd recommend having a few qualifying rounds in which all resigned participants take part: this way everyone will end up at least having a couple of attempts at proposing an emoji spelling to some prompts. We had it set up that two participants would progress from each of our four qualifying rounds, leaving us with eight quarter-finalists and therefore four head-to-head quarter-finals. Of course feel free to play with the structure, but this worked well for us! ๐๐ฒ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฅ
- Another obvious one, but make your prompts relevant to the place youโre hosting your event, e.g. your city or country, as well as to recent developments in the world of news ๐ฐ and pop culture ๐บ. This has been the case for all the emoji spelling bees so far, so itโd be great to keep up the fun localisation that has occurred! ๐บ
If youโve any questions about the above, please feel free to reach out to me via keith@nudgemoji.com!