Dan’s Best of the Best 2013 Voting Opens Today!
It’s fall on the East End, often touted by those in the know as the best time of the year. Everyone at Dan’s Papers would have to agree, because for the last 20-plus years fall has been Best of the Best season! Every October, Dan’s Papers asks our readers to vote on their favorite businesses, experiences, places and people on the East End. All those votes are tallied up, and in early November the winners of Dan’s Best of the Best readers survey are announced. Then, shortly after that, there’s a big party to celebrate the winners. Yes, it’s time for Dan’s Best of the Best 2013.
Over the last two decades, some things have changed in how the Best of the Best voting is handled and the size of our party. Recently a nomination period was introduced, which begins each year in mid-August. Thanks to our busy Best of the Best website, we now handle all the voting via a third-party system online. This ensures that ALL the nominees come directly from the public and are fairly nominated. The same is true for the voting, no chance of human error because it’s all calculated via the online survey company.
With this new electronic set-up there’s no more having to stop by the Dan’s office to drop your ballot in a box or mail it in and hope it makes it on time. While it was always fun to have the public stopping by the office, this modern method of voting has opened the contest up to a much larger audience. Last year, more than 10,000 individual voters signed up and cast over 100,000 votes. Once again the online voting system was in place beginning on August 9 and nominations were accepted through the special webpage (dansbotb.com) until September 18.
And the nominations came flooding in across 200 categories on the South and North Fork. As the new nomination process is only in its second year, all winners from the previous year are automatically nominated. This ensures a robust field of competitors and gives those who won in the past a chance to defend their title. Due to this rule, many categories have five nominees!
Now we move onto the voting process. As of Friday, September 27, all nominated parties are included in the voting pages located at dansbotb.com. Everyone is invited to log on and vote for his or her favorites on the North and South Fork, until voting concludes on October 24. The winners will be announced November 8 in Dan’s Papers and on danspapers.com.
Broken down into sections for Arts & Entertainment, Food & Drink, Home Services, Professional Services, Pets, Wine & Wineries, Recreation/Travel & Tourism, Health, Wellness & Beauty, Shopping and finally Restaurants/Night Life, there are more than 200 different categories included. The voting is also broken down into North Fork and South Fork (although there are always some crossover nominations). Each category will have at least a Platinum and a Gold level winner, the busier categories will also have a Bronze winner.
The Dan’s Papers Best of the Best party for winners and their friends will take place on November 15. Immediately following the winners celebration there will be a concert featuring the two most-often-voted “Best of” musical performers on the East End—Gene Casey and the Lone Sharks and The Nancy Atlas Project. Tickets to see Gene Casey and Nancy Atlas perform will be available to the general public and will go on sale in the next two weeks. For more details please contact Ellen Dioguardi at 631-537-1789 or check back here for updates.