Most awards ceremonies run the walk-on music off a laptop - a stock sting fired by an AV op watching a cue sheet. It does the job. But a live band playing the ceremony does something a backing track cannot: it reads the room. The presenter dawdles on the way to the lectern and the music stretches with them. A winner gets a bigger cheer than anyone expected and the band rides it. The photo on stage takes a beat longer and the music holds, rather than cutting dead two bars too early. We have been playing live award stings at corporate ceremonies across South Wales and the Midlands for years, and it has quietly become one of the things we are booked for specifically.
What a live award sting actually is
There are two moments to play, and they are different. First the presenter walk-up - a short, building piece to carry whoever is hosting that category from their table to the stage with a bit of occasion. Then the winner’s music - a separate lift as the name is read, big enough to get the room on its feet, sustained through the walk up and the handshake and the photo, then landed cleanly so the acceptance can start. Doing that live means the band is watching the stage, not a timecode, so every category lands on the moment instead of near it.
ICC Wales: a Casino Royale awards night
The fullest version we have done was a Casino Royale themed awards night at ICC Wales in May 2025 - a massive production, full AV crew, performers and lasers, the lot. We leaned right into the theme: the band played “You Know My Name”, the Casino Royale title song, and for the announcement of each award we hit the Monty Norman James Bond Theme in John Barry’s arrangement - that guitar line landing as the winner’s name went up. In a room with that much production around it, live music tying the ceremony together is what stops it feeling like a sequence of AV cues and makes it feel like a show.
However the room is laid out
The stage setup is genuinely up to the event organiser, and we have played the awards every way it comes. At Celtic Manor the band has been at the back of the room, the PA throwing out sideways with the flying line arrays covering everywhere and the front stage used for the awards - and we have also done it the other way round, a dedicated award-band stage at the rear and the main band on the main stage, slipping from one to the other without a gap. At the Ironbridge Suite in Telford we ran the awards from a side stage right next to the dancefloor, and when the formal part finished the delegates simply rotated ninety degrees onto the floor for the party. At ICC Wales it was a single shared stage. None of that changes the job - stings for the presenters, a lift for each winner, the photo held - it only changes where we stand, and that is the organiser’s call.
That is the pattern across all of them: the stings carry the formal part, then the full showband takes over for the evening - one band, the ceremony and the party both covered, and the awkward handover gone.
Planning award stings into your night
If you are putting an awards ceremony together and want the walk-ons played live, the things worth talking through early are the running order, how many categories there are, and whether you want themed music tying into the night - we will build the stings around your script and your stage layout. It works at any scale, from a sit-down dinner with a dozen categories up to a full-production gala.
The Brotherhood are South Wales’ premier corporate band, playing awards ceremonies, conferences and parties from Newport and Cardiff across to Birmingham and the Midlands. Get in touch to talk about live award stings for your event.
