Awards FAQ

The DMAs aim to recognise outstanding talent across the globe in the fields of sugarcraft, cake decorating and sugar artistry. They are a celebration of both existing and new or upcoming talent. The DMAs are international awards and absolutely anyone from anywhere in the world can enter. You can nominate yourself or someone else.

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The DMAs consist of a variety of categories. You can view all the categories HERE. 

To nominate yourself or someone else all you need to do is complete the nomination form (NB: nominations for the 2025 awards will open in September). There is no cost to nominate. Nominations are limited to one form per person. Any duplicates will not be considered.

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The nomination form is a simple questionnaire which will give you the option to nominate someone for each of the categories. If you're not sure who to nominate for a particular category, just leave that category blank (but remember that once submitted you cannot complete the form again).

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Please note that not all categories will necessarily be awarded each year and not all awards will necessarily be announced at the in person awards evening. Inclusion of categories is at the discretion of the organisers.

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Nominations will open in September and will close on 15th November each year.

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Artists can nominate themselves or others by completing the nomination form. NB: The nominations for the 2025 DMAs will open in September. The form can only be completed once per person.

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Once the nomination period is closed, D'licious Magazine will undertake a thorough analysis of every nomination, taking into account the number of nominations received but also the work of those nominated over the past 12 months. Criteria looked at will include, but is not limited to: the originality and creativity of designs, the skill (execution, difficulty and ability) of the artist and the range and amount of work produced.

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Short-listed entries will be asked to submit a portfolio of work which will be passed to the judges. If an entrant fails to reply, we will assume they no longer wish to be included and they will be respectfully removed from the running. Judges will then score the entries using our points based system. The number of nominations from the public will be converted into points and will be added to the judges marks - thus making the public an additional 'judge'. The entries with the most points at the end of this process will be named as the finalists.

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Once the finalists have been selected, they may be contacted again and asked to submit any further relevant information or supporting statements. These will be sent to our esteemed judges. Finalists will be announced in December.

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Public voting for the finalists will open and our judging panel will score the finalists using our points based system. Once again public votes will be converted to our points based system and will be added to the judges scores. The finalist with the highest points at the end of this round will be declared the winner of their category.

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The winners will be announced in February at our in person awards evening. Please note that not every award will be announced live at the event and some will be announced in our in-evening brochure or after the event online. Inclusion of the categories is at the discretion of the organisers and finalists will be informed if their category will be announced live at the event.  

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You do not need to attend the awards in order to win. 

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All winners will receive a bespoke trophy and certificate. Some categories may have additional prizes as offered by our sponsors. All winners will be provided with online badges which can be shared on social media / websites. Winners may be required to complete an interview with D'licious Magazine.

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Please note that some categories such as Sugar Personality of the Year and the People's Choice categories will not undergo the selection process outlined above and will be based solely on the number of public votes received.

You can learn about all our wonderful sponsors HERE and meet our fabulous judges HERE.

The next in-person awards night will be held on Saturday 21st February 2026 at Allington Castle, Maidstone, Kent, UK. The event is strictly adults only (over 18s) and the dress code is black tie. Only guests with valid tickets will be granted entry. The event will run from 5pm until 1am.

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Tickets to the awards include private entrance, free parking, two welcome drinks, reception and mingling with others in the industry, entertainment, photo opportunities, access to a fully stocked bar, 3 course silver service dinner and half a bottle of wine per person, after dinner tea and coffee, awards ceremony with host Rosie-Cake-Diva, games, spot prizes and competitions throughout the evening and an after party disco until late.

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Tables seat 10 people and you can purchase single tickets, small groups of tickets or full tables. Tickets can be paid for in installments or in full. Tickets cost £125 per person. Please note, unfortunately as this event requires minimum numbers to go ahead, there are no refunds available if you are unable to attend. If you find you can no longer attend please contact D'licious Magazine and we can help you transfer your ticket to another guest / someone on the wait list.

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You can request to sit with certain guests. We will always try to accommodate these requests although we cannot guarantee them if seats are not booked together. Guests must not change or swap seats during the dinner to ensure smooth service. 

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You will be asked to select your menu choices nearer the event date. After 15th January we will be unable to change any menu choices. 

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Tickets for the event will be issued at the end of January.

Absolutely not. Of course if you are a finalist then we'd love you to be part of the awards night. There is nothing better than getting dressed up and celebrating your achievements surrounded by your friends and peers. Plus if you win, what an amazing thrill to be able to collect your trophy in person and get those all important professional photos!

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However the awards night is not just for the finalists. It is a celebration of our sweet industry and it will be a fun and relaxed evening full of laughter and excitement. You will get to mingle with like-minded people, meet your caking heroes and make some new friends and business contacts.

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The awards are open to everyone over the age of 18 and we will happily provide invitation letters to overseas visitors who require them for visa applications. Tickets are released in stages and numbers are strictly limited so do not delay if you want to attend or you may be too late.

There are several hotels near our venue. We recommend the Premier Inn Sandling or The Village Hotel Maidstone however the Premier Inn Allington is also very close.

Absolutely not! Each year we go through all of the nominations received. Sometimes this is the first time we have heard of some artists so you definitely do not need to have worked with the magazine in order to win. Every year to date we have had at least one artist who we had not met before the awards, who has won their category and many more have been finalists too!

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And you do not need to know the magazine editor to win either! We want these to be the fairest awards out there and there is absolutely no favouritism or biased judging! Although at D'licious Magazine we would love to see our friends win - they will only do so if it is on their own merit. It will never be because of any friendships or connections behind the scenes.

Again, absolutely not! The awards are open worldwide and anyone, from any country can be nominated. In the 2024 awards, out of 25 winners, 18 were not from England! In the previous two years, out of 34 awards, 20 were not from England! This means that since the awards' conception in 2022, we have had 59 awards in total and 38 of the winners were from outside of England! 

This is not true! You don't have to be famous or have millions of followers to win. Some of our winners to date are hobby bakers and have less than 1,000 followers. It's not about how big you are in caking circles or if you make waves on social media. It's about your work and that's it. All candidates work is put into anonymous folders and sent to the judges without names attached. Judges mark independently and anonymously and at no point do they confer or discuss nominees. This allows for unbiased, fair and transparent scoring. The public vote is just one mark out of the other judges' marks so please don;t worry about this one small aspect of the process.

This is completely up to you. If you don;t want to take part then of course you don't have to, but please don't be discouraged because you haven't won yet. Yet being the important word here! This could be your year! And don't forget, being a finalist is an amazing achievement in itself! Last year we had 11,500 original nominations. If you made it to the finals that means you were one of a handful that was selected based on your incredible talents!

The DMAs are different in that each year the awards are for that year of work only! For this reason when you are asked to submit your portfolio of evidence, you will only be allowed to include work made between September 15th of the previous year to now. We do it this way to ensure fairness and give different artists the chance to win each year! It would be unfair to give an award to an artist who perhaps hasn't done much in the past twelve months but is known for their hugely famous work of previous years don't you think?

If you still have questions please contact us at info@TheDMAs.co.uk. Please allow up to 72 hours for a response.