Yet Another Reason Why ALL James Beard Awards Should Be in Same City

Back when the Beard Foundation and the City of Chicago announced that this year’s Chef and Restaurant Awards were coming to Chicago for the first time, they also quietly added that the Book, Broadcast and Journalism Awards would be staying in New York City. They’ve typically been held at Gotham Hall (pictured, above) on the Friday night before the Monday gala at Lincoln Center. It’s no secret that the majority of the nation’s media houses, magazines and publishers are based there, and to make them all travel to Chicago would probably cause undue hardship, risking a low turnout.

At the time the Chicago news broke, JBF President Susan Ungaro said that the lesser-known awards gala would be staying in New York, because “60 percent of those who attend the journalism, broadcast and book awards reside in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut. For the chefs gala, two-thirds of attendees come from outside the New York tri-state area.” As my research indicated back then, not only do two-thirds of the chef’s gala attendees come from outside of the tri-state area, the same ratio holds true for the Book, Broadcast and Journalism attendees. So just to be sure, we crunched this year’s numbers, and came up with similar results.

Out of 36 Book Category nominees this year, 13 are from the tri-state area (12 from NY, 1 from CT) for a 35% share, meaning 65% were from elsewhere. Broadcast had 30 nominees, with 10 tri-staters, all from NY, for a 35% share, meaning 65% of the nominees were from elsewhere.  Out of the 49 Journalism nominees, 21 are from the tri-state area (all NY except for 1 from CT) for 43%, meaning 57% of the nominees are from elsewhere.

So out of 115 nominees, 44 were from the tri-state area (38%), meaning a full 62% of the nominees at the Book, Broadcast and Journalism awards come from outside of the golden tri-state region. As an aside, New York had the most nominees of any state; California came in second place but only has about half as many.

I’m not trying to be a dick about this, just pointing out the facts. If the reason you’re going to keep the awards in New York is because the majority of the nominees live out there, fine, I get it. But as the evidence shows each year, that’s simply not the case. You have two-thirds of the attendees spending money on flights and hotels (there’s a great rate being made available at the Waldorf for just $329 plus taxes), and if you want to bring your producer or anyone extra, that’ll be $350 thank you very much. I know Chicago is bending over backwards for the Awards, privately raising about $2 million, and I can’t imagine they wouldn’t work out a much sweeter deal for hotel rooms for nominees, maybe even chartering a flight on United for everyone. I realize budgets are strained, but it’s just as bad “elsewhere” as it is in the ti-state area.

JBF: you’re giving Chicago a shot at hosting the chef and restaurant awards, and that’s fantastic. Next year, let’s have everything in one place.