And it’s safe to say that a great time was had by all. But one guest asked ‘why do the same companies always win?’ referring to Pureprint’s quartet of Prisms this year and, perhaps, Buxton’s incredible hat-trick of Company of the Year gongs. Claiming his company was ‘better’ than both.

My simple answer was, they don’t. Every year there are first-time entrants that are victorious and seasoned shortlisters winning their first Award. Yes, we’re fortunate that our Awards are so highly regarded that some companies enter multiple categories in multiple years, but if they’re consistently winning it’s because our panel of independent judges think their entries are consistently brilliant.

Perhaps I should have also drawn a comparison with the ‘PrintWeek Awards of the film industry’, ahem, the Oscars.

Precisely 108 films have received four Oscars or more in a given year, and three have received no fewer than 11: Titanic, Ben-Hur and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which scored 11 wins out of 11 nominations (useful intel for a pub quiz).

I should imagine that the Pureprint team, as proud as they were of their four Prisms, would have loved to have scored eight out of eight.

And who knows, perhaps next year they will – because that’s the strength of the Awards, anyone can win if their entry is good enough.

So, I asked said guest, who, for the record was perfectly charming, if they’d had a bad experience with the Awards – perhaps they had been overlooked once? No. It transpired that their company has never entered.

To be fair, he did look almost as embarrassed as I did exasperated.