Time Out Love City FAQs

What does the voting stage involve?
An online form will be hosted on www.timeout.com/lovehongkong from March 6 to April 10 2018 where people can vote for their favourite venue or business in their city/neighbourhood. Not every venue that’s voted for is guaranteed to be counted – we reserve the right of discretion, if we think a vote is inappropriate, or insincere. Once we have counted all of the votes the winners and runners up will be finalised, notified and announced!

How do I vote?
You’ll need to head to www.timeout.com/lovehongkong in order to vote.

Do I need to create an account to vote?
If you are a regular Time Out user, you can use your normal login on timeout.com to vote. If you do not have an account, you’ll need to create one, which takes one minute and is free.

I pressed the wrong button, can you reset my vote?
You can vote for as many venues as you like, but you cannot un-submit votes, so please select carefully.

Can I vote via email or phone?
No. All votes must come via the www.timeout.com/lovehongkong website from a logged-in user.

I’m a local venue, can I vote for myself/can my customers vote for me?
Absolutely. Voting is open until April 10 2018. Remember to encourage your customers to vote for you too!

Can I vote in multiple categories?
Yes, you can vote in all of the available categories.

My venue isn’t listed. Can we add it?
Yes, you can! Go to www.timeout.com/getlistedhongkong, from there you can submit your details.

Some of the details about our venue are wrong.
If you’re concerned that the name or location of your venue is incorrect, please contact us by emailing lovehongkong@timeout.com.

I think my venue/a venue I know is in the wrong category.
Unfortunately, the category is set and cannot be changed. If you’re a hybrid category – for example an art gallery and and café, most of the time you’ll be listed in your more dominant category.

Can you send me some posters/a promotional pack?
We’ve already sent out our promotional packs and are unable to resend. However, if you’d like to download a poster and print it yourself, head to www.timeout.com/lovehongkong/poster.

I need a logo or an image to use on social media.
Head to www.timeout.com/lovehongkong/badge to download a “Vote” logo.

How can we promote our venue to help us win?
To boost your chances of winning, it’s a good idea to tell your customers, friends and family to vote and help spread the word. This is because both stages rely on the quantity of votes. Here are our top tips:

1. Use the free assets provided at www.timeout.com/lovehongkong/badge and www.timeout.com/lovehongkong/poster 
Use them anywhere you can – shop windows, on tables, on your website – anywhere you think it’ll grab attention.

2. Tell all your customers
Your customers love you and will want to support you and your local area. So tell them! Use the posters and be sure to ask them in person if they’ve voted yet.

3. Use social media
We recommend you use social media to encourage your customers to vote for you. You can use our Instagram-sized asset to encourage votes – make sure you include the URL www.timeout.com/lovehongkong wherever you post. You can also tag posts with #timeouthk but remember, you need the votes via the www.timeout.com/lovehongkong page not just mentions on social media.

4. Be original and get creative
Last year many of the winning venues got creative with their promotional tactics. Make sure you use all the assets available to you and if you have wacky ideas that you think will help – go for it (as long as it’s legal). Do not buy votes or pay a company to do this for you, our software is rather good at detecting these and any suspected fraudsters will be disqualified (sorry for the tough love).

5. Stick up your poster
We’ve sent you a poster, so put it up in the window of your venue! Get the word out and people voting even when they’re not heading inside.

Can I get featured on Time Out/get someone to come and review?
Although the Love City campaign is run and hosted by Time Out, we are unable to accommodate requests to send a Time Out reviewer down to your venue. All of our editorial reviews are done anonymously and similarly, you cannot buy into our editorial content, including articles. If you’d like to find out ways that you can promote your venue better on Time Out, contact advertising@timeout.com (Global) or lovehongkong@timeout.com (HK only).

I’d like to add some photos/content to my listing on Time Out
If you’d like to add a photo to your listing on Time Out, you’ll need to claim your page (you can do this at www.timeout.com/getlistedhongkong). You can have one photo on your page for free, which should be a good quality image of the interior/exterior of your venue in landscape format. Please do not submit logos or flyers.

Can I find out how many votes I received?
We don’t release the total number of votes received per venue during the campaign.

Does the ‘love it’ count on my venue page correspond to the number of votes I’ve received?
No, it doesn’t.

Winners reveal
The venues with the most votes will be presented at the Reveal stage as ‘Winner’ and ‘Runners-up’ on May 2. Winning venues will be showcased on the Time Out website in May.

Why aren't we having an event this year?
Whilst we do love a good party, we're going even bigger and better on Love City this year, so we wanted to put all our efforts into the overall campaign. We’ll be sure to reward winners with lots of lovely publicity online and in the magazine though.

When will I get my certificate and window sticker?
You should receive this by the end of May at the latest. If you have not received it by this point please email us and we will seek to resend it.

I’ve got more loves on my page than the venue that won. Why haven’t I won?
The winners (and runners-up) are calculated by number of votes. The number of votes does not always translate to the number of reviews and/or ‘loves’ on your page. These can be accumulated over years and each love or review does not equal one vote.

What do runners-up get?
It’s an amazing achievement to get runner-up out of so many local venues so firstly well done – locals certainly love you. Runners-up will receive a postal pack containing a window sticker and certificate, as winners do, as well as a shiny badge on their Time Out page.

1. Time Out reserves the right, at its complete discretion, to remove any business from the Love City Awards/campaign or to discount any votes. Any votes that are identified as having been generated using a tool or programme will be excluded from the final count.

2. The Time Out Love Awards is aimed at celebrating independent businesses. Major chains (over ten outlets or more) may be removed from the competition at Time Out’s discretion

3. Time Out is under no obligation to disclose the number of votes at any stage of the Love City campaign process.

4. Time Out shall have no responsibility for any costs incurred by any person or entity in relation to the Love City Awards/campaign.

5. For further information, please contact lovehongkong@timeout.com.