The various category winners are awarded a trophy, with initial designs featuring various star shapes.

The first Star Awards presentation was held on 26 February 1994, took place at the Caldecott Broadcast Centre, Mediacorp TV Theatre with an audience of about 500 people.

Chew Chor Meng, Li Nanxing, Terence Cao, Sean Say, Desmond Sim, Chen Liping, Chen Xiuhuan, Pan Lingling, Aileen Tan, and Zoe Tay received the award as the 10 Most Popular Artistes, with five awards given to male and female artistes; these artistes were awarded by popularity among the television audience based from the public via telephone and SMS text voting.

[10] ^2 Previously, technical category awards (e.g. Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Variety Show Producer, etc.

), newscaster and current affairs awards and, for a time, the Young Talent Award (for child actors) were held separately at a gala dinner (or afternoon conference) due to time constraints and results and clips from the event would be shown either during the ceremony, or live-streaming before the ceremony.

Since 2016 (with the exception for 2017), the format was reverted with the technical category awards presented at an off-site ceremony.

^3 In accordance to the social distancing measures, the ceremony is conducted closed-doors, and international celebrities communicate via teleconference due to travel restrictions.

Between 2010 and 2014, xinmsn provided its first online Live streaming for both the ceremony as well as backstage, and since 2013, Toggle (both the website and the smartphone/smart TV application).

In 1994, the first Star Awards were presented at the Caldecott Broadcast Centre, Mediacorp TV Theatre and the following year until 2015; however, seven ceremonies were held outside the studios: in 1996, the venue of Star Awards changed to World Trade Centre, Harbour Pavilion and was hosted by Guo Liang and Yvette Tsui.

In 2016, the awards had since held at the new Mediacorp Campus, MES Theatre @ Mediacorp, and it became the presentation's current venue with incredibly spacious interior and stunning architectural designs, the 1,500-seater performance venue features tiered seating in its stalls and two circle levels, including removable seats at the lower stall and additional audience sitting space at the orchestra pit for people with special needs.