A GLITZY awards ceremony this week will see the nation’s favourite toys judged by the people who are rarely asked – the children.

The event, to be held on Thursday in the Cineworld at London’s O2, is the next step forward for a business set up in Bournemouth to get kids reviewing toys.

ToyTesters.tv was the brainchild of Gemma Gallagher, 35, who had worked on the website for GMTV Kids before it was shut down when the commercial bottom fell out of children’s television.

She went freelance and did consultancy work for toy companies and research agencies before hitting on her business idea.

“One day, I had a bit of a light bulb moment. I just thought, there’s no platform where children review products,” she said.

“I went to a toy fair in London a couple of years ago and I spoke to all the exhibitors there, asked them what their feelings were on an online platform for kids where they reviewed toys.”

The idea went down well with the industry and Gemma entered her idea into Starter For 10, a regional competition for government start-up funding. She got through to the final in Bournemouth and won £10,000.

ToyTesters.tv now has 350 young reviewers from all over the country providing manufacturers with valuable information.

Toy companies offer the products and the website puts out a call to its young reviewers to see who is interested in receiving one of the toys. Children have reviewed toys from Mattel, Moshi Monsters, Bandai’s Tamagotchi, Lego Friends, Spinmaster, Hasbro’s Transformers range and more – and get to keep the review products.

“They compile a testing report, say what they like, what they don’t like, what can be improved, what should come next in the range,” said Gemma.

“They can do a video review.”

The videos are overseen by director of content Nigel Clarke, a presenter who has worked for Nickelodoen, the Disney Channel and CBBC.

This year, the ToyTesters.tv team decided to build on the idea and set up their own awards scheme.

Children have been voting on the Most Fun Toy, Coolest Toy, Best Invention, Favourite Educational Toy, Best Pocket Money Spend and Top Toy of the Year.

“Children, in our opinion, are really the ones that should be judging the awards and no one else,” said Gemma.

“There are other awards. The industry is quite full with them. But that’s why we did it, because there are so many different awards that we wanted to really become an authoritative brand.”

The event has celebrity appeal with the participation of former Toonattik presenter Anna Williamson, who appeared on Splash, and Luke Franks, host of X Factor Online. The verdict of the judges will be revealed late on Thursday afternoon.

Gemma added: “We feel that children should be the ones that say what ought to be winning awards rather than people in suits.”