Vertical Drama Gets Its First Awards Show, and Hollywood Is the Venue
FlareFlow presents the Vertical Drama Love Fan Awards at the El Portal Theatre on April 23. Every winner chosen by fans, with no jury and no industry gatekeeping.
Vertical drama just got its first awards show, and Hollywood is the venue.
FlareFlow presents the Vertical Drama Love Fan Awards at the El Portal Theatre in Los Angeles on April 23. Every winner is chosen by fans. No industry jury, no gatekeeping, just the audience deciding who wins.
What it is
A platform-organized, fan-voted ceremony for a format that has had no formal recognition of any kind. For performers who have led dozens of series and been seen by tens of millions of viewers without a single award, nomination or trade mention, it is the first time the work has been acknowledged in a room.
The fan-vote model fits the format. Vertical’s stars are stars because audiences chose them, episode by episode, and a ceremony that lets those audiences choose again is consistent with how the industry actually works.
What comes next
The format is officially stepping into the spotlight, and a first awards show is the kind of milestone that tends to be followed quickly by others. The association’s own ceremony, The Verticals, is in development as an industry-wide recognition program spanning platforms, with categories for performance, direction, writing and design.
A fan award and an industry award are not in competition. One tells performers the audience sees them. The other tells the rest of the industry that their peers do. The format needs both, and FlareFlow has started the first.