Pegasus Award Categories for 2025

There are currently six Pegasus award categories, including two floating categories that are different each year.

Best Filk Song

Any filk song is eligible in this category so long as it has not previously won a Pegasus Award.

Best Classic Filk Song

Any well known filk song that is at least 10 years old and has not previously won a Pegasus Award, and has not been on the final ballot in this category in both of the previous two years.

Best Writer/Composer

Any writer/composer of filk songs who has not won this Pegasus Award in the past 5 years.

Best Performer

Any performer in the filk community who has not won this Pegasus Award in the past 5 years.

Best Hero Song

This is for all the hero's who save the day, save the planet, or maybe just save your spare change...

Best Villain Song

This is for all the villains, and their dastardly deeds that have been preserved in song!

Voting for the Pegasus Award

Voting is open to anyone with an interest in Filk music. Ballots are submitted through a form on the OVFF Pegasus Awards website. Balloting closes on the Thursday before OVFF each year. Balloting is briefly re-opened after the Pegasus Nominees concert for OVFF attendees. All balloting is conducted through the OVFF website.

Pegasus Nominations

Nominations for the Pegasus Awards are made by the people of the filk community.

Nominating ballots are made available online and at conventions each year starting around the end of May (US Memorial Day). The cut-off for nomination submissions the end of July. After the nominating ballots are counted and the selection process is completed, the top five nominees in each category are announced. This occurs on or before the first weekend in September (US Labor Day). The Final Ballot is then made available online and distributed at conventions. Voting concludes on the Friday night of OVFF, and the Pegasus Award Winners are announced at the Saturday night banquet.

Eligibility

Any filk song or artist is eligible for the Awards, with the following limitations:

• The artist must self-identify as a member of the filk community.
• Songs cannot appear in the same song category (Best Filk Song, Best Classic Filk Song and the floating categories) more than two years in a row.
• Songs cannot appear on the ballot more than three years in a row in multiple categories.
• Artists cannot appear more than two years in a row in the same artist category (Best Writer/Composer, Best Performer).

Songs and artists are again eligible in these categories after a one year hiatus from the ballot.

At the end of the Nomination Phase, filk artists are contacted to accept or decline their Nomination(s) in order to appear on the Final Ballot.

Pegasus Brainstorming Poll

When the Nominating Ballot is released, a list of suggested artists and songs is attached. This list is generated by the Pegasus Brainstorming Poll, where anyone with a connection to filking can submit suggestions for songs and people that they think deserve to be nominated. The brainstorming poll runs from August through mid-April.

Please note- this site is a work in progress. There is still a lot of information to gather into the Nominees pages on this site- so the lyric you are looking for, or bio information may not be here yet. We are continually working on archiving bios and lyrics of all past Nominees and Winners. Thank you for your understanding.