How to Choose the Ideal Trophy Cup for Your Next Awards Ceremony

When you’re organising an awards ceremony for a local sports club, school or business, it’s good to have a glittering centrepiece on your trophy table – and that’s where presentation cups come in. Here’s our handy guide to picking the ideal trophy cups for your event.

Choosing a Trophy Cup – What Should You Consider?

Trophy cups can be made from a number of different materials, and this affects their weight, look and price. To make a statement, try a premium option, like the classic silver cup. This type of trophy is synonymous with sporting achievement; the US Open Men’s Singles Tennis trophy is a well-known example. We offer a superb range of silver plated trophy cups and, if you’re looking for something ultra-durable, you could select one of our impressive nickel plated trophy cups.

Our trophies are all great value for money, but if your budget is tight, it’s an idea to buy presentation cups made from cheaper materials. This may enable you to buy larger awards, so they will really stand out on your trophy table. Our range of presentation cups includes some stunning-looking plastic awards, for example, many of which are designed to look like gold or silver trophies.

As large trophy cups are usually presented to the overall winners of events, you may only need to buy one for your ceremony, so you can splash out. You can then purchase smaller, cheaper trophies, or medals, for the runners-up or to mark individual achievements. You don’t necessarily have to buy a new presentation cup each year either – most major sporting competitions retain the original trophies and give the winners smaller replicas instead, so you could follow suit. Consider asking a local business to sponsor your main trophy cup too, so you can spend a little more on it.

You’ll also need to decide which style of cup will meet your needs best – and that may mean thinking about the kind of award usually presented for the type of achievements that you’re celebrating. For example, while the classic cup design is suitable for use at a host of different events, alternative versions are synonymous with particular sports. Many people associate claret jugs with golf, for example, because of the British Open’s famous trophy.

You may prefer an urn-style trophy, like UEFA European Championship’s Henri Delaunay Cup, or a presentation cup with a contemporary twist, like the trophy used for the Copa America Centenario.

One more thing to think about is whether or not you want a cup with a lid. While lids can look impressive, they can fly off if they aren’t fixed in place, as happened during Manchester United’s 2016 FA Cup celebrations, or could even end up being worn as hats, as demonstrated by Arona Kone after Wigan Athletic’s 2013 win.

Engraved Trophy Cups – Making Your Awards More Personal

Don’t forget to consider engraving options when picking your presentation cup too. Whether you want to add each winner’s name to a trophy you use every year, or personalise individual awards with specific messages, you can do so with ease these days.

Many presentation cups have round or square bases. If you pick one with a square base, you could have the award title engraved on the front plate and add further details, such as the winner’s or sponsor’s name, to one of the remaining three plates.

Awards with round bases, on the other hand, often feature engravable plinth bands. If you opt for a trophy with a plinth band, you might want to have the name of the award engraved on the front of the band and feature the name of the winner, the presentation date, the location at which the competition took place, or even a relevant, inspirational quote on the rest of its circumference.

A cup with a plinth band is also a great option for anyone looking to use the award annually and keep it in their school or sports club’s trophy cabinet, as a plinth band will frequently be large enough to be engraved with many winners’ names. This makes it a very practical and cost-effective choice for forward-thinking competition organisers – and, when you do run out of room, you could even add extra plinths to your award, as has happened with the world-famous Davis Cup.

Alternatively, silver plated trophy cups and nickel plated trophy cups can usually have details engraved on their bowls instead.

High-quality trophy cup engraving is often cheap now too. While trophies made from metal were traditionally engraved by hand, this technique is now in decline. Today, the most commonly used method of trophy cup engraving is diamond drag engraving, a high-tech process using a machine which can personalise a range of materials with designs produced by computer or by hand.

When you buy your trophy from our online store, you can take advantage of our low-cost engraving service – and we’ll deliver your award to your door, making the whole process hassle-free.

Do you buy awards for presentation ceremonies? Do you have any trophy cup buying tips to share? Let us know in the comments section.