How to arrange a festival?
In general, I work as a designer and usually do reports about design or about UX. But this report is special, I want to tell you about how to make your own luxurious it-event. The report is based on real events and personal experience of the organization of the Festival 404 .
Initially, it was an enthusiastic report on how everything is cool, easy and simple. Something like that: go out into a clean field, stick a shovel into the ground, the next day a beautiful big oak will grow from a cutting. Likewise with conferences - everything is easy and simple. But! In the spring of this year, we tried to make a conference on electronic trading ProfitFest in Samara and completely failed. I will also recall this experience, so the report has become twice as useful.
')
It so happened that in our Samara we began to carry out one rather noticeable and unusual it-event even by all-Russian standards. Of course, this was not the fruit of a cunning plan, but everything happened quite by accident. 5 festivals have already passed and interest in the event is only growing.
Last year we were very surprised by the vast geography of the festival participants. Something makes people travel many thousands of kilometers to Samara. Yes, we have a good city, but probably there are some other reasons.
70 reports were made in 12 thematic sections in two days. This is very, very much. But this year we are planning 16 sections and more than 100 performances !
If you haven't been to the fest, then watch this little video to get the atmosphere:
But all this did not appear by itself. There was a whole series of events that made the fest a reality.
It was a distant 2007 year. There have already been many web studios and other IT companies in the city. But they were all on their own. Almost no one spoke and did not exchange experiences. Only occasionally met small companies. There was an idea to make a small picnic for Samara web developers. An announcement of the event was made in social networks ...
... it's time to meet. We could not believe our eyes: about a hundred people came! Some participants came from nearby cities. Instead of drinking beer and chatting in small interest groups, we had a mini-conference - each company told about itself. It was incredibly interesting. It became clear that Samara needed an it conference.
In 2008, the guys from the Dominion company decided to organize a real conference. They rented halls in the Azimuth Hotel, made a website and came up with a clever name “404: Festival not found”. This time more than 200 people have already gathered, there were projectors and microphones.
In 2009, our company Turbomilk joined the organization of the festival. We decided to take a desperate step - to make everything incredibly cool and hold an event in the newly built Holiday Inn Samara hotel. We were lucky that the hotel went to meet us and we did not go bankrupt on rent. Plus, we have the first sponsors . This time the festival gathered 450 people.
Let's move on to the basics - without the participants, any event does not make sense. Who comes to us at the fest ?!
We analyzed the list of participants in the 404fest and realized that they are very different people. As you can see, we are far from the original conference of web developers. Now we are positioning the fest as the “festival of Internet workers”.
By the way, the main reason for the failure of ProfitFest was the fact that we very much cut off the potential target audience. In Samara, no more than two dozen people are actively involved in online shopping, and we have conceived a conference for 450 participants! Of course, failure awaited us. But then we somehow did not think about it and hoped for a miracle.
Statistics of the number of participants of the Festival 404 by year. Probably, we could collect more, but there is a restriction on the site. (we even had to close the registration) Although, this year the Holiday Inn completed another room for 300 people and we expect 1000 participants.
It is very important to choose the correct date for the event. This is special magic!
We are holding the 404 Festival at the weekend in early October. At this time in Samara is very good and beautiful - a pleasant warm autumn. The festival goes on Saturday-Sunday, but many come on Friday and stay until Monday. Interesting fact: the organizers of other conferences contact us in advance to find out when exactly the festival will take place so that the events do not overlap each other.
Let's go back to ProfitFest. Our big mistake was that we decided to hold a fest at the end of June. Two days off in the summer are worth their weight in gold! And not everyone is willing to spend them on work.
The choice of location is also very important. It depends on how comfortable the participants will feel and what impressions they will have.
We hold a fest in one of the best hotels in Samara. The main advantage: there is a large and convenient business center with several rooms. It is very convenient to live in the same place where the event takes place. An additional advantage: the hotel is located on the banks of the Volga in the historical center of Samara, you can walk and see the city. But there is a downside: rent, coffee breaks, lunches - all this is very expensive.
I'll tell you a little more why we chose Holiday Inn. Previously, it was decided to hold events in assembly halls of institutions or other public institutions. Poor furniture, stuffy rooms, shabby walls — all this was the standard entourage of most conferences.
In 2009, I was lucky to attend the MIX conference in Las Vegas, which was arranged by Microsoft. Habr's old-timers can remember my photo reports live ( first , second ). I was surprised then how much it all differed from the conferences I had to attend. It was interesting, useful and not dull. Speakers joked, made interesting presentations, there was a lot of backstage communication. And every evening there were afterparty in the best clubs in Las Vegas. Then I decided that we in Samara also need this!
The first time doing the festival in Holiday was very scary. Everything there seemed very expensive and inaccessible. At that time, web developers were for the most part modest and not rich. But by the way, I’ll share my observation - every year people from our industry become more and more wealthy. Now a good hotel is perceived by many as something completely normal.
The program is more important than the date and venue. That it affects the decision to participate in the conference.
There are many approaches to the formation of the program. Plus, I'm not even sure that we are doing everything right when we decide who and what will be told at 404fest. Here is a list of reports this year - basically there is something interesting to the organizers of the festival. This is both good and bad at the same time.
I'll tell you what system we have. We agree in advance with cool people from the industry and ask them to be the organizers of the sections. From this point on, they become the main ones in their section and decide for themselves who to invite to speak. Thus, we kill many birds with one stone - we get cool reports and we take off part of the organizational work. The important point is not to recruit those who really want to speak, but those who know how to do it are interesting and useful. It is necessary to study the speaker in advance and see his reports at other conferences.
Festival 404 for four years is paid. Initially, we introduced a fee to filter out strange people who came to the fest just to hang out and have a coffee with a sandwich for free. Then the price for participation began to grow along with the costs of the organization. In my opinion, the price for participation is not too high, but we need to explain to people in advance what will be good at the festival.
To succeed, it is desirable to achieve the effect of "snowball". This is when someone decides to come to us, calls his friends, they call their friends. Then it turns out that "the whole party is here!" After all, in addition to educational and networking components, many come to see their friends from other cities.
I do not consider myself a professional in promotion. We use fairly standard channels. We spend almost no money on advertising, but prefer to invest in cool speakers. But sometimes we lack the strength and ability to correctly represent the speakers of the audience, to explain what will be of interest to one or another report. We will work on it.
The main tool is the festival website. He must answer simple questions: what will happen when, the schedule of reports and so on. Making a good conference site is incredibly difficult. The picture shows the site last year, and here you can see the current one. It is much better than before, but we are still very, very far from ideal.
One of the chips of the Festival 404 is the presence of a talisman - the Hare of Death. I will not tell you in detail about it if you are interested in a blog post: How we invented and painted the talisman of the Festival 404 . The hare really works! Yes, it is possible that he frightens away some of his frivolity. Yes, it may be difficult for some to explain to the authorities why they are going on a business trip to an event with a bunny. :)
So. You are all organized and prepared. But early to give up! The event still needs to be held.
The most important, of course, are the reports. Make sure that all equipment works. To make reports start and end on time. To the halls was not hot or cold. To external noise does not interfere with the speakers.
But parallel to the reports, you can do all sorts of different funny things. On large conferences, Twitter tags work well. Our tag # 404fest - on it completely strangers can discuss the report or share some useful information. Make sure all participants know what your event tag is, so that there is no confusion.
We have a big three-meter hare with which everyone is photographed and post photos in Instragram.
Very important activity in the lobby. For example, the Dominion company came up with a photo booth where everyone is photographed in strange clothes against a background of a carpet.
Last year, Ilya Birman and Kurazh Bambey came up with a musical zone, where they taught everyone to compose music on mobile devices. Many people liked it and this year will be something like that.
After the conference, everyone always wants to “continue the banquet” in order to meet new people and communicate. To do this, we organize an after-party restaurant with refreshments and a cultural program. Some believe that our afterparty is more important than the festival. :)
Let's sum up.
Try to start with something small. Doing something big right away is extremely risky. But if you succeed, you will definitely like it. By the way, we start cooking fest for half a year.
Thanks for attention! Hope my presentation was helpful. I am pleased to answer your questions in the comments.
I take this opportunity to invite you to Samara for the Festival 404 , which will be held on October 12-13, 2013.
Initially, it was an enthusiastic report on how everything is cool, easy and simple. Something like that: go out into a clean field, stick a shovel into the ground, the next day a beautiful big oak will grow from a cutting. Likewise with conferences - everything is easy and simple. But! In the spring of this year, we tried to make a conference on electronic trading ProfitFest in Samara and completely failed. I will also recall this experience, so the report has become twice as useful.
')
It so happened that in our Samara we began to carry out one rather noticeable and unusual it-event even by all-Russian standards. Of course, this was not the fruit of a cunning plan, but everything happened quite by accident. 5 festivals have already passed and interest in the event is only growing.
Last year we were very surprised by the vast geography of the festival participants. Something makes people travel many thousands of kilometers to Samara. Yes, we have a good city, but probably there are some other reasons.
70 reports were made in 12 thematic sections in two days. This is very, very much. But this year we are planning 16 sections and more than 100 performances !
If you haven't been to the fest, then watch this little video to get the atmosphere:
But all this did not appear by itself. There was a whole series of events that made the fest a reality.
It was a distant 2007 year. There have already been many web studios and other IT companies in the city. But they were all on their own. Almost no one spoke and did not exchange experiences. Only occasionally met small companies. There was an idea to make a small picnic for Samara web developers. An announcement of the event was made in social networks ...
... it's time to meet. We could not believe our eyes: about a hundred people came! Some participants came from nearby cities. Instead of drinking beer and chatting in small interest groups, we had a mini-conference - each company told about itself. It was incredibly interesting. It became clear that Samara needed an it conference.
In 2008, the guys from the Dominion company decided to organize a real conference. They rented halls in the Azimuth Hotel, made a website and came up with a clever name “404: Festival not found”. This time more than 200 people have already gathered, there were projectors and microphones.
In 2009, our company Turbomilk joined the organization of the festival. We decided to take a desperate step - to make everything incredibly cool and hold an event in the newly built Holiday Inn Samara hotel. We were lucky that the hotel went to meet us and we did not go bankrupt on rent. Plus, we have the first sponsors . This time the festival gathered 450 people.
Let's move on to the basics - without the participants, any event does not make sense. Who comes to us at the fest ?!
We analyzed the list of participants in the 404fest and realized that they are very different people. As you can see, we are far from the original conference of web developers. Now we are positioning the fest as the “festival of Internet workers”.
By the way, the main reason for the failure of ProfitFest was the fact that we very much cut off the potential target audience. In Samara, no more than two dozen people are actively involved in online shopping, and we have conceived a conference for 450 participants! Of course, failure awaited us. But then we somehow did not think about it and hoped for a miracle.
Statistics of the number of participants of the Festival 404 by year. Probably, we could collect more, but there is a restriction on the site. (we even had to close the registration) Although, this year the Holiday Inn completed another room for 300 people and we expect 1000 participants.
It is very important to choose the correct date for the event. This is special magic!
We are holding the 404 Festival at the weekend in early October. At this time in Samara is very good and beautiful - a pleasant warm autumn. The festival goes on Saturday-Sunday, but many come on Friday and stay until Monday. Interesting fact: the organizers of other conferences contact us in advance to find out when exactly the festival will take place so that the events do not overlap each other.
Let's go back to ProfitFest. Our big mistake was that we decided to hold a fest at the end of June. Two days off in the summer are worth their weight in gold! And not everyone is willing to spend them on work.
The choice of location is also very important. It depends on how comfortable the participants will feel and what impressions they will have.
We hold a fest in one of the best hotels in Samara. The main advantage: there is a large and convenient business center with several rooms. It is very convenient to live in the same place where the event takes place. An additional advantage: the hotel is located on the banks of the Volga in the historical center of Samara, you can walk and see the city. But there is a downside: rent, coffee breaks, lunches - all this is very expensive.
I'll tell you a little more why we chose Holiday Inn. Previously, it was decided to hold events in assembly halls of institutions or other public institutions. Poor furniture, stuffy rooms, shabby walls — all this was the standard entourage of most conferences.
In 2009, I was lucky to attend the MIX conference in Las Vegas, which was arranged by Microsoft. Habr's old-timers can remember my photo reports live ( first , second ). I was surprised then how much it all differed from the conferences I had to attend. It was interesting, useful and not dull. Speakers joked, made interesting presentations, there was a lot of backstage communication. And every evening there were afterparty in the best clubs in Las Vegas. Then I decided that we in Samara also need this!
The first time doing the festival in Holiday was very scary. Everything there seemed very expensive and inaccessible. At that time, web developers were for the most part modest and not rich. But by the way, I’ll share my observation - every year people from our industry become more and more wealthy. Now a good hotel is perceived by many as something completely normal.
The program is more important than the date and venue. That it affects the decision to participate in the conference.
There are many approaches to the formation of the program. Plus, I'm not even sure that we are doing everything right when we decide who and what will be told at 404fest. Here is a list of reports this year - basically there is something interesting to the organizers of the festival. This is both good and bad at the same time.
I'll tell you what system we have. We agree in advance with cool people from the industry and ask them to be the organizers of the sections. From this point on, they become the main ones in their section and decide for themselves who to invite to speak. Thus, we kill many birds with one stone - we get cool reports and we take off part of the organizational work. The important point is not to recruit those who really want to speak, but those who know how to do it are interesting and useful. It is necessary to study the speaker in advance and see his reports at other conferences.
Festival 404 for four years is paid. Initially, we introduced a fee to filter out strange people who came to the fest just to hang out and have a coffee with a sandwich for free. Then the price for participation began to grow along with the costs of the organization. In my opinion, the price for participation is not too high, but we need to explain to people in advance what will be good at the festival.
To succeed, it is desirable to achieve the effect of "snowball". This is when someone decides to come to us, calls his friends, they call their friends. Then it turns out that "the whole party is here!" After all, in addition to educational and networking components, many come to see their friends from other cities.
I do not consider myself a professional in promotion. We use fairly standard channels. We spend almost no money on advertising, but prefer to invest in cool speakers. But sometimes we lack the strength and ability to correctly represent the speakers of the audience, to explain what will be of interest to one or another report. We will work on it.
The main tool is the festival website. He must answer simple questions: what will happen when, the schedule of reports and so on. Making a good conference site is incredibly difficult. The picture shows the site last year, and here you can see the current one. It is much better than before, but we are still very, very far from ideal.
One of the chips of the Festival 404 is the presence of a talisman - the Hare of Death. I will not tell you in detail about it if you are interested in a blog post: How we invented and painted the talisman of the Festival 404 . The hare really works! Yes, it is possible that he frightens away some of his frivolity. Yes, it may be difficult for some to explain to the authorities why they are going on a business trip to an event with a bunny. :)
So. You are all organized and prepared. But early to give up! The event still needs to be held.
The most important, of course, are the reports. Make sure that all equipment works. To make reports start and end on time. To the halls was not hot or cold. To external noise does not interfere with the speakers.
But parallel to the reports, you can do all sorts of different funny things. On large conferences, Twitter tags work well. Our tag # 404fest - on it completely strangers can discuss the report or share some useful information. Make sure all participants know what your event tag is, so that there is no confusion.
We have a big three-meter hare with which everyone is photographed and post photos in Instragram.
Very important activity in the lobby. For example, the Dominion company came up with a photo booth where everyone is photographed in strange clothes against a background of a carpet.
Last year, Ilya Birman and Kurazh Bambey came up with a musical zone, where they taught everyone to compose music on mobile devices. Many people liked it and this year will be something like that.
After the conference, everyone always wants to “continue the banquet” in order to meet new people and communicate. To do this, we organize an after-party restaurant with refreshments and a cultural program. Some believe that our afterparty is more important than the festival. :)
Let's sum up.
Try to start with something small. Doing something big right away is extremely risky. But if you succeed, you will definitely like it. By the way, we start cooking fest for half a year.
Thanks for attention! Hope my presentation was helpful. I am pleased to answer your questions in the comments.
I take this opportunity to invite you to Samara for the Festival 404 , which will be held on October 12-13, 2013.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/195932/
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