Celebrating Hamilton’s CBD award winners

The winners have been chosen and Hamilton’s renowned CBD Awards have delivered another hugely successful year.

“The night of October 12th was a fantastic evening packed with celebration and recognition of our fantastic central city businesses and what they have achieved,” reports Vanessa Williams,

GM of the Hamilton Central Business Association.

By all accounts the evening was a stunner – kicking off at the Ferrybank Park band rotunda with live jazz by the Trenwith brothers, Good George cocktails and canapes from River Kitchen, before heading across the road to The Meteor for the awards ceremony where guests arrived to a beautifully dressed venue created by Royal Lab and a delicious banquet of food provided by SkyCity Hamilton.

“The entertainment mid-ceremony by sax player Lewis McCallum was a real highlight and had the guests dancing in the aisles,” says Vanessa.

Photos were captured by Moving Media, sound and lighting provided by SBI Productions.

Spark was the main sponsor of the event, which was also made possible by the Hamilton Central Business Association and Mediaworks.

Around 250 business people and key stakeholders attended the event to celebrate.

Vanessa believes the success of the 2022 Awards was aided by the allowance of public nominations.

“Businesses nominated by their customers seemed much more confident about entering. Entries ranged from newly established businesses to those that have been based in the central city for a while, but never entered before.”

2022 saw a predominance of entries from ‘close customer’ businesses such as retail, hospitality and health & beauty, says Vanessa. “It was also exciting to see the number of businesses entering the Public Good category.”

With covid restrictions easing, the HCBA, together with the Hamilton City Council, also launched the Love the Centre campaign this year to encourage Hamiltonians to reconnect with city centre businesses.

“With the success of this campaign, it made sense to carry this brand across our CBD Awards and use it as an opportunity to engage both the business community and general public in supporting the awards,” explains Vanessa.

The CBD that’s all about its businesses

For ten years HCBA has been a significant contributor to ensuring the revitalisation of Hamilton’s central city – through focusing on business advocacy, support and promotion.

The organisation is committed to continuing the momentum of a revitalised Hamilton CBD with more events and activities in central public spaces complimenting commercial development and business growth.

Having Spark Business as the main sponsor and Mediaworks a contributory sponsor of this year’s CBD Awards demonstrates their confidence in the central city and the business community. The awards also capture the very essence and excitement of the city’s growth and development. They’ve been described as a programme based around what makes businesses ‘fizz’.

The 2022 Hamilton CBD Awards winners are:

PROMOTION: Journey + Co

INNOVATION: Cloudland

PUBLIC GOOD: Earth Diverse

SHOPPING: Sweet Pea Parties

ACTIVITY-BASED EXPERIENCE: Boon Hamilton Street Art

HEALTH & BEAUTY EXPERIENCE: ProStyle

BARS, RESTAURANTS/EAT & DRINK: Bahn Mi Caphe

DAYTIME EAT & DRINK: Cream Eatery

ESTABLISHED BUSINESS: Scott’s Epicurean

NEW BUSINESS: Hanrad Bespoke Rugs

CUSTOMER SERVICE: True Store