When nomination opens you can nominate a business either by clicking on the Nominate tab on the navigation bar, or on the Nominate Now button on the homepage. Before nominations open, and after they close, the tab and button will not be available.

The 2026 Ribble Valley Business Awards ceremony will take place on Thursday 19 March at Mytton Fold Hotel, Langho.

The awards are open to all Ribble Valley based businesses and not for profit organisations. One of the three criteria below must apply to a business for it to be eligible for nomination / entry to the awards

1. They have business premises for which they pay business rates to Ribble Valley Council

2. They do not have business premises, their business address is their home address and they pay council tax to Ribble Valley Council

3. They do not pay business rates or council tax to Ribble Valley Council, they own / operate a purchased business franchise for the Ribble Valley area and deliver services in physical locations in the Ribble Valley

NB! We use a Local Authority checker on the .gov.uk website to ascertain which council the business is under, this can be accessed here to check a given business’s location. 

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Ribble Valley Business Awards celebrates businesses and organisations within the Ribble Valley. Only businesses located within the Ribble Valley council area can enter. If nominated businesses fall outside of this remit, they won’t be shouted-out or invited to enter the awards. If you’re unsure whether a business is part of Ribble Valley Council area you can click here to check.

Nominations can be made by anyone outside of your business, why not ask a supplier or customer – or one of your employees – to nominate you. They don’t nominate you for a given award, a nomination entitles you to enter all categories you’re eligible for. See below for more information.

Please nominate as many businesses as you like, the more the merrier! To nominate again, just refresh / reload the Nomination page after nominating.

There is no voting aspect to the awards. A nomination entitles the nominated business to enter the awards. See below for how the awards are judged.

Yes, of course. Nominations can be made by anyone.

If you’ve had your official nomination shout-out / email you can click the link to fill in your online application form via our new AwardX system if you’d like to enter the awards. You can also enter via the Enter Button on the Nominate Page.

Once your form has been submitted online you will be officially entered into the awards. All entry forms must be submitted by the deadline as given above.

Nominated businesses / organisations can enter up to six categories. The online form has the details of each category and you tick the ones you’d like to enter. View all Categories at this link.

As the awards effectively recognise the ‘best’ business in a given category, it’s important that businesses have been running for a period of time. Thus many (not all) of the awards require businesses to have been trading prior to 1 September 2024.

This will allow the independent judging panel to assess business performance (and improvements in it), and progress towards business objectives. For businesses who started trading since then, the New Business category is the main one to enter – Creative Business, Made in Ribble Valley and Social Media Champion are also open to all businesses, regardless of longevity.

Our core panel of judges from across the Ribble Valley will read through all entry forms and decide, collectively, on who should be shortlisted. For each award, the judging panel will also include the sponsor.

The shortlisted businesses / finalists for each category will be announced via social media on Thursday 12 February 2026. Finalists will also receive an email telling them they have been shortlisted.

A designated Judgement Day will see the judges meet with each sponsor throughout the day to discuss and debate the winner of each category. This information will remain Top Secret until winners are revealed at the awards ceremony.

For our live ceremony, the doors and bar will normally open at 5.45pm. We will sit down at 6.30pm with the meal served from 6.45pm. The awards will be presented between 8.45pm and 10.30pm. The final award to be presented will be the Beacon Award.

Ticket booking will open once the finalists are announced. Ticket priority is given to finalists and sponsors, it is unlikely that general admission tickets will be available although we do hold a list of potential attendees should any become available. Tickets can be purchased online, via a unique link, which will be sent to finalists once announced.

We wanted to make it easier to enter the awards. Our online form is a smart-form and will help you decide which of the many award categories to enter (you are welcome to enter as many as you are eligible for). You can also save the form at any time, and return to it later. We no longer offer the functionality to enter offline / manually.

You will need to have been nominated and officially shouted out on our Facebook & Instagram pages first. Official nominees can be viewed at this link during and after the nomination period.

All nominees can then click the link in their emails to register and enter the awards.

The SUBMIT button must be clicked to fully submit your category answers and enter the awards, once you’re happy with your answers.

You will see the Category Entries in your list of submitted categories. You can enter up to 6 categories..

You can tweak your answers right up to the deadline as above

If you’ve lost your password you can reset it using the email address you registered with here <link will be added when entries live>