{"id":221151,"date":"2026-03-26T08:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T08:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/221151\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T08:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T08:34:12","slug":"what-is-best-of-austin-and-six-other-questions-answered-for-first-time-voters-the-austin-chronicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/221151\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Best of Austin?, and Six Other Questions Answered for First-Time Voters \u2022 The Austin Chronicle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Greetings! In this week\u2019s issue, we kick off a new year of Best of Austin polling. Whether you\u2019re new to the paper or just need a refresher, we\u2019re here to demystify the process.<\/p>\n

What Is Best of Austin?<\/p>\n

First started by The Austin Chronicle in 1990, the annual Best of Austin Awards<\/a> celebrate community excellence across Arts & Entertainment, Food & Drink, Kids & Family, Nightlife, Politics & Media, Shopping, Services, and Sports & Recreation.<\/p>\n

Who Decides Who Wins These Things?<\/p>\n

The Chronicle editorial staff and a handful of our trusted freelancers decide the Critics Picks winners \u2013 there\u2019s usually about 60 or so of those \u2013 but the bulk of the awards are decided by you fine folks via the Readers Poll.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Readers What?<\/p>\n

The Readers Poll. Over the course of two rounds, our readers first nominate their favorites and then select a winner from five finalists in 180 categories \u2013\u00a0from the practical (Best Roofer, Best Veterinarian, Best Mani\/Pedi) to the playful (Best Playground, Best Dive Bar, Best Cannabusiness) to the downright essential (Best Queso).<\/p>\n

Can I Ask People to Vote for Me?<\/p>\n

You sure can. In fact, we built \u201cGet Out the Vote\u201d social media materials that you can download for free at vote.austinchronicle.com<\/a>. It\u2019s a big ballot, so we recommend you tell your supporters which category they should vote for you in \u2013 really spell it out for \u2019em. (Literally, if you\u2019ve got a complicated name.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

When It Comes to Campaigning, What\u2019s Cool, and What\u2019s Not?<\/p>\n

Cool: Tacking up a flyer at your business encouraging clients to vote for you. Sending a newsletter to your subscribers with a link to the ballot. Posting to social media a heartfelt request to your followers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not cool \u2013 like, grounds-for-disqualification levels of uncool: Promising anything in exchange for a vote. Creating multiple email accounts to vote more than once. (One voter, one vote, y\u2019all.) Employing bots, or any other chicanery that, when you\u2019re really being honest with yourself, you know isn\u2019t fair play.<\/p>\n

Fair play is a two-way street: We promise readers that awards can\u2019t be bought, not now and not ever. You\u2019ll see lots of BOA-targeted ads on the online ballot and in these pages. We\u2019re awfully grateful for our advertisers \u2013\u00a0we couldn\u2019t fund our journalism without them\u00a0\u2013 but what they\u2019re getting is primo placement in front of your juicy eyeballs, nothing more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And This Is All Happening Now?<\/p>\n

Right now! Act fast! The first round \u2013\u00a0what we call the nominating, or write-in, ballot \u2013 kicks off Thursday, March 26, and ends at 11:59pm on Monday, April 6. In this round, you can vote for whoever and whatever your heart desires. (Not finding a category that fits your field\/business\/unique skill set? That\u2019s what the wild card categories are for. Don\u2019t be shy \u2013\u00a0we sometimes steal wild card ideas for our Critics Picks.)<\/p>\n

When that round ends, we crunch the numbers and put together a finalist ballot \u2013 typically five nominees in each category. In this round, which runs May 7-18, you don\u2019t just get to vote; you get to leave comments \u2013 little testimonials about what you love about a finalist \u2013 which we just might pick for publication in the big Best of Austin issue.<\/p>\n

\u2026 Speaking of?<\/p>\n

The 36th annual Best of Austin awards issue hits stands June 18.<\/p>\n

This article appears in March 27 \u2022 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A note to readers:\u00a0Bold and uncensored,\u00a0The Austin Chronicle\u00a0has been Austin\u2019s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community\u2019s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greetings! In this week\u2019s issue, we kick off a new year of Best of Austin polling. Whether you\u2019re…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,86134],"class_list":{"0":"post-221151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news","11":"tag-best-of-austin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}