Beatfactor: House Music Awards 2005

The general public turned out in force also, filling the huge ground floor space comfortably. The venue selection and event programme was clearly tailored to cater for these clubbers, and live performances from the Body Rockers and Barbara Tucker along with DJ sets from David Guetta and Joey Negro made sure that everyone was kept suitably entertained.

The award ceremony, hosted by the bronzed and brilliant Cuban Brothers in eye catching pink suits, saw David Guetta scoop the most prizes, winning DJ of the Year, Best Live Set and Stand Out Event at the Miami Winter Music Conference thanks to his well acclaimed F**k Me I'm Famous night. Not to be outdone, Mylo won awards for Galaxy Artist of the Year and Album of the Year, and his label Breastfed bagged the Best Breakthrough Label accolade. It was a successful evening forDefected also, winning Label of the Year and Best Club Night for their Defected in the House parties. Moreover Blaze's 'Most Precious Love' featuring the defining vocals of Barbara Tucker, released through Defected, came top of the pile for the Essential Selection Track of the Year. Unsurprisingly 'Most Precious Love' and Barbara Tucker also picked up the top prize for the Outstanding Vocal category. Ms Tucker was in attendance and treated the crowd to live performances throughout the proceedings. These performances, along with the Body Rockers and Gadjo featuring Alex Prince, were nice touches that complimented the ceremony, but they did little to support the argument that dance music can work in a live environment. Alex Prince and Barbara Tucker's routines were little more than pumped up karaoke attempts, with disjointed backing music. And as for the Body Rockers, comparisons with Busted were all to clear as they pranced around with guitars and microphones with dubious relevance to the music coming out of the speakers.

This aside the entertainment levels were kept high throughout thanks to the Cuban Brothers who ensured the programme ran along nicely, throwing shapes to match the best of them on the dancefloor. Top house producers Martin Solveig and Steve Angello were rightly rewarded for their contributions this year, with Solveig taking the Most Innovative Producer award and Steve Angello taking away the trophy for Breakthrough Producer. Space in Ibiza won the Best Venue category, while Creamfields were crowned as the best Festival Event of the Year. MTV's award for Best Dance Video left many scratching their buzzing heads as Basement Jaxx's 'Oh My Gosh' stole the award from the visual treat that is the Chemical Brothers 'Believe' video. Away from the higher profile awards, Radio 1 Extra scooped the Best Radio Station prize and DontStayIn.com fought off competition from Ministry of Sound and us at Beat Factor for the award for Best Web Resource. Elsewhere Juno proved that it is still head and shoulders about the rest by receiving the Best Independent Store for the second year running.

In a fitting finale Pete Tong was awarded with an Outstanding Contribution to House Music and the rousing appreciation from the crowd on the dancefloor, and from the industry representations on the balcony proved that it was more than deserved. As the presentations ended the music started with DJ performances from Joey Negro and award top dog David Guetta. Once more the sound quality was far from perfect and the technical problems spoilt much of Joey Negro's set, despite his best efforts to get the crowd moving by dropping house classics. The problems with the sound also spilt over into the event organisation in general, with the average time taken for an award winner to reach the stage being around 15 minutes (or thereabouts). However, the rough edges that surrounded the House Music Awards were also the main things that made it such a charming event to attend. The relaxed way that house music legends such as Norman Jay, Marshall Jefferson and Frankie Knuckles mingled with the paying public in the bar and below made it a really personal and ego free experience. And as Beat Factor called it a night the image of David Guetta filling his face with cake from the buffet bar like a kid at Christmas was an amusing end to a great evening. Roll on 2006!