It may have flown under your radar that LEDs Magazine opened up its 2023 BrightStar Awards program portal last Thursday. No worries, we'll remind our audience multiple times over so you won't miss a beat. ;-)
We are looking forward to finding out what our judges find compelling from the past year-plus. Call-back to last year's announcement to summarize what we're looking for: "Submissions, which must be commercially available, will be evaluated against several criteria, including energy efficiency; improvements to performance or features over previously available products (such as color rendering, luminous efficacy, and spectral power distribution); and their role in advancing emerging applications or existing applications."
UPDATE -- LEDs Magazine will hand out BrightStar Awards to recipients in attendance or exhibiting at LightFair 2023 at the Javits Center in New York City on May 23, 2023. All recipients will be notified under embargo prior to the show opening and will receive further details about promotions and collecting their awards. For those who will not be exhibiting or attending LightFair 2023, we will make arrangements to ship awards directly to a company contact.
Five things to know right up top
1. The awards entry fees have NOT changed since 2022's program. We kept the Early Bird and Regular rates, as well as a $100 discount for multiple entries after the first one. We've got your back!
2. The Early Bird rate ends on December 20. Yes, that is 15 days from now! No, we're not kidding. We want to keep a tight schedule on these opportunities before many people are on holiday and end-of-year leave. But you still have until January 31, 2023 to complete submissions at the Regular rate.
3. We often get questions such as "Where does my product fit?" We have some detailed descriptions of the product entry categories on the BrightStar Awards portal. I usually advise people to select the most appropriate application type for their product. For example, if you have a horticultural-specific packaged LED to enter, select the Horticultural SSL & Control Systems category — as opposed to LED Light Sources or Specialty SSL & Systems. But don't stress; we will review all entries for placement in the proper categories. If you still have questions, please don't hesitate to email me.
4. You may submit an entire product line as one BrightStar Awards entry as long as part of it meets the timeframe for eligibility — products must be commercially available starting from July 1, 2021 onward. Products from multiple lines or that have different functionalities (say, an individual indoor pendant and an individual indoor spotlight from different product lines) should be submitted as separate entries.
5. Once you've begun your entry, you can save it. You can also "Print to PDF" in order to see all of the required fields that you need to finalize before you complete your entry.
5.5 ... Bonus item that came up last year: If you are attempting to finalize your payment and an overseas credit processing issue occurs, please email your contact information and your entry to our program administrator, Julia Campbell. She can help facilitate a direct billing process with our Accounting department. Please note that payment will be due upon receipt of the invoice.
More BrightStar Awards
LEDs Magazine announces 2022 BrightStar Awards honorees
Slideshow: LEDs Magazine hands out 2022 BrightStar 'hardware'
Product Spotlight: BrightStar Awards Honorees
CARRIE MEADOWS is managing editor of LEDs Magazine, with more than 20 years’ experience in business-to-business publishing across technology markets including solid-state technology manufacturing, fiberoptic communications, machine vision, lasers and photonics, and LEDs and lighting.
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