The cream of the North West’s Digital sector gathered at Manchester’s luxurious Palace Hotel on Thursday to celebrate this year’s Big Chip Awards, the North West’s annual awards for digital excellence.

The night was hosted by legendary Manchester broadcaster Terry Christian and saw a record number of entries competing for one of 20 prestigious awards. The night also saw David Threlfall (Frank Gallagher from Shameless) speak on behalf of his charity Action for Children.

Organised by Manchester Digital, the trade association for the region’s digital sector, and backed by media partners Insider and New Media Age, the awards lived up to their reputation as the must-attend event of the North West’s digital calendar.

The big winners of the night were Cheadle’s Lightbox Education who took home the Big Chip Grand Prix for their MP for a Week which also won Best Public Sector Project.

Manchester’s Stardotstar and freelancer Digital Blah Blah also performed well at the awards. Stardotstar were crowned Best New Media Agency as well as winning Best e-Learning Project for its interactive exploration of the royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Things to Come and Best Application of Technology for its innovative iphone parking app Nosey Parker. Digital Blah Blah won Best Freelancer / Micro Enterprise and scooped Best Use of Visual Design for the Adam Rix website.

Manchester Museum’s Consortium & Visit Manchester, a group of nine art museums and galleries in Manchester, won Best On-line Brand Development for the on-line magazine Creative Tourist, which celebrates everything’s that’s going on in the city – the site was also commended for Best Public Sector Project.

Manchester’s 11 Out of 10 Ltd. Won Best E-Business Project for Pure Gym ecommerce website.

Digital agency Cahoona snapped up the Best Not For Profit Project for its website for the redevelopment of legendary Manchester venue Band on the Wall which also won the publicly voted Tasty Website Award.

Manchester SEO experts PushON were awarded the Best Use of Search for their work on the Love Those Shoes website.

The Best Digital Marketing Campaign went to Iris Manchester for Wonderbra’s new Ultimate Strapless bra.

Manchester based Wooshi.com, the brand-new platform connecting the creators of rich media with potential buyers, was crowned Best Newcomer in the North West.

The Neighbourhood were awarded the Best Use of Animation for its video for Nord Anglia Education – Craig Knowles and David Ridges were commended in this category.

Connect2Media took home the Game of the North Award for its web-spinning iphone game Arachnadoodle.

The Big Chip International Award for Innovation went to Studio Liddell and Magic Lantern’s Bugbear website for BBC Children’s.

This year’s Big Chip saw the launch of two brand-new North of England awards, the Big Green Chip Award and the Little Chip Student Award. The DTP Group took the Big Green Award for its Managed Print & Copy Services at Leeds Metropolitan University whilst Andreas Linden from the University of Central Lancashire won the Little Chip Student Award.

The winner of the Anthony Wilson Original Modern Award was Kilogramme, who entered for Best Freelancer/Microenterprise. The Anthony Wilson Original Modern Award’s guest judge this year was the BBC’s Andy Davy.

The panel of judges, chaired by Michael Nutley, editor of New Media Age magazine, and including Gavin Ailes of Searchworks, Peter Cowley of Endemol, Alasdair Rawsthorne of the University of Manchester, Steve Smith of Liverpool Vision and Channel 4’s commissioning editor for education and new media Matt Locke had a tough job selecting the winners from one of the strongest Big Chip shortlists to date.

The headline sponsor of the 2010 Big Chip Awards were Vision+Media. The other sponsors were 2ergo, Insider, Manchester Metropolitan University, Marketing Manchester, Melbourne Server Hosting, MIDAS, Montpelier, New Media Age, Orchard and UK Trade and Investment.

Chairman of Manchester Digital and Big Chip organiser Shaun Fensom said: “It’s been a fantastic year for the Big Chip Awards and the North West’s digital sector in general. We had a record number of entries and the judging panel were impressed with the very high level of quality in all the shortlisted entries.

“There is a highly skilled and very creative pool of talent in the North and North West region and Big Chip provides a showcase for the very best projects and organisations. It’s vital we recognise those who continue to create exciting and innovative products and services, contributing to raising the reputation of the region as a hot-bed of fresh thinking as we move forward.”

Enda Carey, Sector Lead for Games, Digital & Creative Services at headline sponsors Vision+Media said: “The Big Chip Awards recognise and reward excellence in the region’s digital industry, which continues to go from strength to strength thanks to the immense amount of digital talent we have here. The Big Chip is a fantastic opportunity for that talent to come together and celebrate their successes of the last year. We’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of the winners.”

For more information on the event or on the winners and their winning projects and to read the judges’ comments visit www.bigchipawards.com

For further media information and images please contact Andrew Spinoza, or Maxim Howard at SKV Communications on (0161) 838 7770 enquiries@skvcommunications.co.uk.