iFANN Award winners are decided by combining the public vote, worth 60 percent of the final score, with the independent rankings of the iFANN International Editorial Board, worth 40 percent. Fans determine who reaches the final stage, and fan support remains the largest single force in every result.
This page is the canonical description of that process. It explains each stage, shows worked examples with real numbers, and states the exact rules the platform applies, including tie breaks and the fallback rule for cycles where the Editorial Review stage is not active. The same methodology applies to every category that uses combined scoring, in every country and every language.
Stage 1: Public voting
Every award cycle opens with a public voting window. Anyone can vote for the nominee they believe deserves the award, and every valid vote is counted. Voting remains open for the full published window for that category, and the live standings are visible on the award page throughout.
When public voting closes, the five highest ranked nominees advance to the Editorial Review stage. The public vote does much more than pick finalists, though. Each finalist carries their share of the entire public vote into the final calculation, so a vote cast for a leading nominee keeps mattering even after that nominee has secured a place in the final five. There is never a point where additional fan support becomes worthless.
Stage 2: Editorial Review
The five finalists are presented to the iFANN International Editorial Board, whose members include journalists, critics, and entertainment professionals from around the world. Each participating board member independently ranks the finalists from first to fifth.
Public vote totals remain visible on iFANN and may be seen by board members, just as they may be seen by any visitor. Members are expressly instructed to set those standings aside and base their rankings solely on their own professional judgment under the official review criteria. Public popularity is already represented in the fan share of the score; the editorial share must remain a separate assessment of merit.
The official review criteria weigh four things: impact during the award period at 30 percent, quality of the work or performance at 30 percent, cultural influence at 20 percent, and professional achievement at 20 percent. Each member applies these criteria independently. Individual ballots are confidential; only the aggregated board ranking is published.
Stage 3: The final score
Each finalist receives fan points equal to their share of all valid votes cast in the category, multiplied by 60. A finalist who earned 40 percent of all valid votes receives 24 fan points, because 40 percent of 60 is 24.
Editorial rankings are converted to points per ballot: a first place ranking is worth 10 points, second is 8, third is 6, fourth is 4, and fifth is 2. Points are added up across all submitted ballots. The finalist with the highest editorial total receives the full 40 editorial points, and every other finalist receives a proportional share. If the board's top choice collected 84 raw points and another finalist collected 42, that finalist receives 20 editorial points.
The final score is simply fan points plus editorial points. The finalist with the highest combined score wins the award.
Worked examples
First, consider a clear public lead. A category records 1,000,000 valid votes. Nominee A earns 500,000 votes and receives 30 fan points. Nominee B earns 250,000 votes and receives 15 fan points. The aggregated Editorial Board ranking places B first for 40 editorial points and A second for 32 editorial points. A finishes with 62 points and B with 55, so the fan leader keeps the win.
Now consider a close race. A category records 1,500,000 valid votes. Nominee A earns 600,000 votes, which is 40 percent of the total, and receives 24 fan points. Nominee B earns 450,000 votes, which is 30 percent, and receives 18 fan points. The Editorial Board's aggregated ranking places B first for 40 editorial points. A finishes second with 32 editorial points after scaling. The final scores are A with 56 and B with 58, so B wins. The public race was close, and a strong editorial consensus decided it.
If A had instead earned 90 percent of all valid votes, A would hold 54 fan points, and even a unanimous editorial preference for B could not close that gap. An overwhelming public verdict cannot be overturned by the board, by design. The Editorial Board decides close races; it never erases a landslide.
Tie breaks
If two finalists end with identical combined scores, the award goes to the finalist with the higher count of valid public votes. If they are still level, the finalist with more first place editorial rankings prevails. If both measures are level, iFANN compares their valid fan votes at the earlier of the tied finalists' last valid vote timestamps, which rewards the nominee who held the stronger position for longer. In the extraordinary case that all three measures are level, the finalists share the same rank and are declared joint winners when that rank is first.
When the Editorial Review stage is not active
The combined system requires real editorial participation. A category's result is published only after at least ten board members have submitted ballots for that category. If fewer than ten ballots exist when the review window closes, no winner is announced: the category stays in Editorial Review until the quorum is met. No iFANN award is ever decided by the public vote alone.
The same honesty applies to history. Award cycles completed before the Editorial Review stage was activated were decided entirely by public voting, and their archive pages are labeled accordingly. iFANN never retroactively invents editorial input for past results, and it never will.
Any future change to this methodology will be published on this page with the date it takes effect. Results are never recalculated under rules that did not exist when the cycle ran.