The party was a success, and, oh yeah, we have a winner. Robin Blandford, probably still caressing his novelty cheque (I would be), from Decisions for Heroes, walked away with €10,000.

He was up against some stiff competition, so congratulations to him. I asked Cory, who has taken a week’s worth of deep breaths, how the culmination of the iQ prize went — both publicly and behind the scenes.

Randall: How was the party overall?  The crowd, the food, the music, etc.?

Cory: I’m not really sure how the party was overall – I spent most of the night clutching my phone and an event schedule whilst silently praying to God/Buddha/Generic Higher Power that nothing would go wrong. All reports from the other 130-odd people who just were there to par-tay seemed pretty positive though, and I didn’t hear any complaints about the music even though I snuck in Heavy D’s ‘Now That We’ve Found Love’ towards the end.

R: How was the anticipation to the winner announcement? Was it crushing?

C: Since it was a pretty informal night there wasn’t a huge build-up – the fanciest we got was buying a gold envelope to put the winner’s name inside. There were definitely a few disappointed shortlisters: there were a few “I can’t believe I lost but I should probably smile and clap for the winner” Oscar-type faces.

R: Did anyone cry?

C: I can’t really answer that for sure – but I did catch up with most of the shortlist after the announcement and didn’t see any red eyes.

R: How did the presentation of the prizes work?
C: After some high-level math work, we deduced that with two prizes and six judges, we could divide the judges into two groups of three – one to make the announcement and the other two to present the prize.

We ran into some snags with the big announcement, since the winning team only had one person and there was a novelty cheque, a ceramic megaphone on a cushion, and a magnum of champagne – but our trusty judge Conor O’Neill seemed happy to hang onto the cheque until Robin had a spare hand free.

R: What’s the deal with that horn?

C: We wanted a custom trophy but apparently it’s really hard to get a hand-crafted bronze statue in three days on a budget. Our back-up was to find a one-off piece from an Irish artist and Morgan saw Clodagh Murphy’s “Say It Loud” in the RHA gallery. He then spent the next two days trying to convince us. The level of consensus reached a general “umm ok yeah” and we went with it.

R: Any highlights from the contestants’ elevator pitches?
C: Octopied had giant polystyrene versions of their logo.  It could have gone towards the hat-with-two-beer-cans territory but I think they kept it classy. Plink also had a great demo video.

R: Apparently they did. Plink won the audience prize.

How was the party aftermath?  The cleanup etc?
C: Thankfully Liz co-ordinated most of the things to go back to the office, being so incredibly efficient that some of the gifts for the shortlist and judges went before I could give them out! There were a few things left over but the pain of trekking things up the two flights of stairs at Clarendon House at 1 am was lessened by the promise (and fulfillment) of a late-night kebab.

R: Anything else to add?  Speeches, funny dances?
Morgan behind a microphone is always gold. As one shortlister put it, “Next time the Late Late Show presenter’s job goes up for grabs Morgan should definitely throw his name in the hat.”

Apart from that – a huge thanks to the entrants, shortlist, judges, attendees and iQubers who helped out, including:

• Liz Browne – for extreme organization, logistics, and lots of help
• Laurence Veale – for transport to and from the Guinness Storehouse
• Clodagh Kelly – for manning the door and counting the votes
• Conor O’Sullivan – for helping with the presentation
• Finán O’Donohue – for helping with prep work
• Ciarán Harris – for doing all the video and helping with the setup
• Brian Donohue – for helping with the cleanup

Check out our facebook iQ prize photo gallery.