Invisible Festival is a virtual festival right in your backyard. Powered by Spotify and with a noble cause.

I was immediately hooked while listening to my favourite music player by the Invisible Festival ad.

The idea is simply marvellous. Following the trend of user generated events, the Invisible Festival adopts extremely well Social Media to deliver a powerful message in a great way.

What is it?

It’s a virtual event that leverages on the power of Spotify, flickr and twitter, to raise awareness for Cancer Research UK.

As from Matt, Mark and Paul – the organizers – describe it:

The Invisible Festival is an online virtual music festival, hosted by you but soundtracked by us. It’s the world’s only 100% mud free, crowd-free, rain-free, tout-free, queue-free, free-free virtual festival.

It’s a terrific idea

This is one of those few initiatives that really grab my attention. We’ve extensively been talking about the power of user generated events and the changing role of event planners.

The Invisible Festival brings together all of the above with a great, balanced Social Media mix.

A Contaminated Concept

This is a great example of a contaminated concept. Ac concept that is born and develops around Social Media, Although there is no actual event, not even a virtual one, the aggregation component becomes the event in itself, leveraging on existing platforms. All of the above with a relatively small budget.

Congratulations to Matt Mark and Paul for the terrific job and a great lesson for all of us about creativity and delivering real value to the end user.

I enjoyed the crowd and we also built a community for the event which I invite you to join.

Julius Solaris @ Masterclass Social Media from punkmedia on Vimeo.

If you can’t see the video click here

If you can’t see the presentation click here

Name: Pathable

Twitter: @pathable

Category: Networking

Description: Pathable allows organizers (which is you) to set up a community for their event. It enables networking with a powerful tagging system.

Your attendees are able to identify their interests and match them with others.

Networking begins before the event. To us this is one of the strongest contribution technology deliver to events. Networking is indeed one of the top reasons to attend events. Therefore you can do the math.

What I like: You can print out special badges carrying on your name as well as those of the people you should meet. The platform works out matching profiles, breaking ice in a powerful fashion.

What could be better: Stronger integration with LinkedIn and Facebook. We don’t want to fill in a new profile given the amount of time we spent to generate our official ones. Help us with a one click import.

Want to improve your event technology? We can help you

EventOrb is a nifty event marketing service that allows promoters to do a number of things such as:

- Create unlimited events
- Add photos from the event before or after it has taken place
- Add videos of the event
- Search for events all around the world by proximity, date, time of day or category

They recently re-launched their event calendar, a great service that allows promoters to push event marketing even further, let me quote from their blog:

….So we decided to take our event calendar to the next level by allowing you to create a concise version of an event and even upload a flyer – all of this, without leaving the calendar page. When you’re done, “presto”, your event magically appears on the calendar.

Have a look and tell me what you think.

Link to Event Calendar – EventOrb

LeWeb08 was a crucial appointment for Internet startups, held in Paris few days ago. The conference was packed with obstacles, but I learned a great lesson: watching events online is a great thing.

I think online and offline are seriously connected. More than most of the Internet professionals suggest. I am of the opinion that every event should have a strong technological infrastructure, to allow people who cannot be there to consume the event. If you prefer, monetizing that as well.

LeWeb was packed misadventures. They spent more than €100K for wireless Internet connection,which was completely unreliable for the whole two days. They also had a serious problem with room heating leaving attendees in freezing cold.

Eureka

A lot of people commented on the above but forgot to celebrate the great success of LeWeb, mostly thanks to rezpondr a startup funded and helped by www.sleepydog.net which equals @philcampbell and @sleepydog

These guys, who represent the only real spark of creativity in this dull, credit crunch depressed, same old London, gave me the opportunity to connect to one page where I could find:

- a Ustream streaming of the event

- all the pictures from flickr tagged leweb

- all the seesmic videos tagged leweb

- all the qik videos tagged leweb

- all the twitter discussions tagged leweb

I had a chat with @philcampbell and he told me that:

…the idea is that a user/group/event can bring together livestreams and social content into one location to make the viewing experience more rounded for the user watching.   The content is displayed in a time based manner with content running from left to right. Newest content first.  Each piece of media has a lightbox on which the user can perform actions with that media.   If the domain is owned by the user that logs in you can also do various transcoding and distribution methods to convert media in a variety of formats.

If the above link no longer works, you can see a screenshot below (click to expand) or check eventca.st :

Few results that may interest you

- I listened to the talks in my nice and warm living room & with reliable internet connection.

- I had the chance to see pictures and videos in real time from all the other rooms as well.

- I read reactions of people listening and discussed with them during the panels over twitter.

- I networked with twitter users who were doing the same thing I was and established great relationships which are still going on.

- We peaked 3000 people watching and interacting through the live chat.

My suggestions

- Don’t bother yourself trying to understand whether leWeb was a success or not.

- Think about how the way we consume events is dramatically changing.

- Think about how perception of people attending your events is changing and expectations accordingly.

- Think about new audiences in New York when you are running an event in Japan and new ways of monetizing it.

- Think about twitter as the most revolutionary Internet tool within the events arena.

- Think about all of the above soon!

Pecha Kucha nights were started in 2003 by Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein in Tokyo. The nights are aimed at young designers, the format teaches a lot to all of us engaged with boring presentations.

Pecha Kucha means chit-chat. Back in 2003 two architects started what is now a very popular movement, with nights all over the globe.

Why?

The format answers to a compelling question, how to give space to young designers without throwing the audience in 2 hours long, endless presentations.

How?

Mark and Astrid created the 20 presenters/20 slides/20 seconds format.

20 designer are given the chance to present a total of 20 slides, 20 seconds each, for a total of 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

As simple as that.

Results

An immediate result is that attention levels are kept very high and everyone involved gets value out of the experience.

Pecha Kucha are now held in more than 157 cities all over the World. They spread with no advertising. Only word of mouth.

Lecturers in universities are now asking their design students to present their assignments in this format.

Autodesk is using Pecha Kucha for its annual sales meetings.

Some videos:

More posts on the subject:

- Presentation Zen

 - Wired

- Pecha Kucha Daily 

- Tips for presenters

Action

I am throwing this to you so it can rock the way you approach events. I am sincerely getting bored of regular things, for regular people.

If you changed the rules in your event, let us know. This blog is here to listen to your story.

CitySocialising is a great local service to help beating the personal barriers that prevent you from getting a better job, improving your social life, being active. Apart from that, it is an awesome threat to traditional event professionals.

Jo is organising Sunday lunch Hampstead and walk and has invited you to attend.

Graham is organising 18-20s west end drinks! and has invited you to attend.

Kelly is organising Cocktail tasting class and has invited you to attend.

I don’t know who Jo, Graham or Kelly are but hey, these events are cool! Usually these kind of mail makes it very quickly to my Spam folder but in this instance I just can’t do it. The events are very relevant, targeted on my area and to my needs. What if I’ll get a special invitation tomorrow to an unmissable event?

What is it?

I had the chance to have a look at how Sanchita, the CEO, explains the reasoning behind CitySocialising.com:

The idea for CitySocialising came from our research into the social requirements of professionals living and working in UK cities. We found that a huge percentage of those in their 20s and 30s were particularly interested in meeting people in London and expand their circle of friends, and identified that this was because:

- There’s a higher likelihood of people in this age group relocating to new cities for work or with partners, arriving with none or few friends in the area.
- Existing friends are more likely to be settling in relationships or moving away in their 20s & 30s, meaning that finding new friends to socialise with is more appealing.
- Social lives can become stale, or social circles dissipate after relationship breakdowns, and opportunities to meet new people are reduced.
- Increasing demands at work allows less time to organise the social lives that suit them.

I can immediately tell you this is not like Meetup.com.

Well, first of all you need to pay to attend members events. At the very beginning I thought this was not a good idea. 30K members in the UK answered my question though. Money is indeed a good way to test motivation and they priced very well.

Secondly they select event hosts in their user base.

Why should you care?

- If you got out from the “I am a professional planner and there is no one as cool as me, or if there is, I got better shoes” attitude, you realized your competition is now users. If you got skills you can make your way into whatever community, if you don’t … well, if you are still reading, I am sure you do!

- You should explore the pricing. I told you free is the new black, almost free is fine, giving the perception it is for free relying on an upfront payment it’s interesting.

- If your brand is out of ideas and you don’t know how to develop existing as well as new relationships, follow this suggestion. Throw your Kotler in the garbage because things are changing fast and only the skilled are taking advantage. Do your research, sponsor user generated events and you will develop intimate connections with your customers.

Link to CitySocialising.com

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The horrible economic trends as well as the impressive movement of user generated events is challenging the traditional scheme of paid events.

If you charge for your events you may soon be in real trouble. If you charge a lot for your events you are probably already facing tough challenges.

The Economy

Pretty straight forward. There are not enough money to be spent on events as before. Companies buying tickets for your conferences are now hesitating on such expenditure. There is simply not the disposable income there used to be. As simple as that.

The Technology

Online meetings are now preferred to conferences. Linkedin/Xing is now preferred to your 3000£/$/€ networking event.

User Generated Events

Meetups, BarCamps, unconferences and the like are now offering free alternatives to your paid events. Getting together a location and asking people to pay for their drinks is now accepted. Nobody wants to mix any more with sponsors, stalls, banners and so forth. Meetups are run by users and most of them are not sponsored. The conventional infrastructure around events is shaking.

Scarcity

You cannot rely any more on scarcity.

I don’t have to wait for big exhibitions to come along in order to network with top professionals. It’s all coming to my city and for free, possibly on a monthly basis.

Now, how do you deal with that? How do you compete with free, zero, nada, niet, niente?

Innovate

You will soon realize that if you manage events conventionally, the demand will drop sensibly.

Few tips.

If you use social media and social networks, if you know what twitter is, if you integrate sponsors gently and wisely, you will definitely find new ways to engage and make a profit.

If you think this is not going to happen and you feel safe where you are, start reading another blog!

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Many people lately have been asking me to promote their events on social networks. My response to most of them is this post.

Social Media and social networks now offer great potential to cut costs on event promotions. Social media and social networks are just buzzwords to gain your attention.

Well now that I do have your attention I’ll tell you how to do it.

1. Linkedin Q&A

Linkedin has a Q&A section. A lot of marketers are using it to push their own conference/event or to get sponsors. Most of the people ask “Who is attending eventname ?”.

Then in the description they will go for paragraphs stating how the conference is going to be great and how you can’t  miss it. I did it myself. Results were appalling and I felt pretty idiot about it.

My suggestions;

- Be engaging in the question. If Frank Sinatra is performing, be catchy and ask “Would you like to meet Frank Sinatra?”.

- Target the need of attendees. If you don’t have great performers or if your objective is different, you want to make sure to be relevant. “Would you like to network with top professionals?” “Come and join us for an entertaining night at eventname”

- Offer something. Announcing is cool, but what’s in it for me reading? Promo codes, discounts, competitions should be part of this process. If you are restating your press release just use different media, it’s not gonna work here.

- Forward the question to those in your network from the event area or within the relevant industry. If you have a small Linkedin network you may want to read this post.

2. Blogs

You probably haven’t noticed that there are plenty of bloggers out there who offer promo codes on their blogs. It’s probably the oldest model to promote events and web 2.0 has revamped it.

How do you get to bloggers?

- Make sure you do your research and contact opinion leaders.

- Double check that they are already doing it. If they don’t do advertising (such as me), they won’t be happy of your pitches.

- Try to understand the point of view of the blogger, display interest for his/her posts and do your homework.

- Be relevant with the reward. Money is not necessary the best way to reward opinionated people.

- Check the Google Page Rank to optimize indexing

3. Mobiles

Hey I am sure you have some advertising budget there. I mean it can’t always be for free.

If so, a little bird told me that iPhone users are great targets.

- AdMob is doing great in integrating advertising in most of the iPhone applications. It is very relevant and personal.

- I also love the way The Deck is integrating ads in Twitterrific, a popular iPhone application for Twitter.

If money is not an option:

- I suggest you publish your event on Eventful. Eventful does integrate with applications such as Where! that displays events close to you, based on your GPS location. GPS is the social networking of the near future and you cannot afford to ignore it.

4. Upcoming

I can’t believe you don’t know Upcoming!

If you are still using direct mail to promote your events, it will proove ineffective shortly.

Upcoming is a strong candidate to become the platform where you publish your events. Eventful is great, but Upcoming has the Yahoo! power to push events socially and make them relevant for a number of people.

- Publishing your event on Upcoming comes at no cost and a 9yrs old kid is completely capable of doing it.

- You can promote your event within Groups and by choosing relevant tags.

- You can also see how many people saved the event to their calendar to manage demand.

5. Facebook

Ok, you know I am not the biggest fan of Facebook, but I feel very stupid ignoring 90+ Million users. Your target should be somewhere in that figure!

- You have an event section on your Facebook profile, as always don’t be lazy and fill it up in every part. Upload logos, pics and videos from previous or related events.

- The social component is very important. As for the Linkedin example I suggest you send the event to your friends and invite them to spread the word. Now, I am aware a lot of people use Facebook for their personal contacts. I have no particular issue with that, although you are missing out on the gigantic proportion of people doing business via Facebook.

I suggest you keep your personal life somewhere else if you want to be out there and get something out of social networks. My approach is to keep my personal stuff offline, full stop.

If you feel all of the above is not enough, feel free to contact me and we’ll discuss it further. If you have your opinion about it, as always, comments are now open!

The results of a discussion on how to ensure that people who RSVP‘d yes at your free event do actually turn up.

The intrinsic value of free events

I love free events. What I love even more is free events with free drinks. It seems like I am not the only one. It is getting ridiculously awkward to actually pay to get in.

If you did your homework chances are that you can cover expenses and make a profit just relying on sponsors.

Last week I attended a Trade Show, a Meetup, a Twestival and a Barcamp.

In all of those I got free food and drinks, gadgets and I did the best networking ever.

The next time someone shows up and tells you you need to pay 1000£/$/€ to attend a conference or a networking event, bear in mind you are actually paying for the steering wheel of organizer’s SUV.

One problem

Now, from the organizer perspective, getting sponsors may be relatively easy if you have a good target audience. But making sure the audience actually attends the day of the event, that’s a whole different ballgame.

I noticed at one of the above events that 40+ attendees did not show up. That’s a pity because they excluded at least the same number of people, who eventually got together for a parallel event.

My problem

I’ll be soon organizing a free event. Don’t be curious. It will be on the barcamp concept, which we love so much, but I cannot disclose more than that.

The problem is we got space for 60 people and much bigger forecast demand. We want to make sure that those who RSVP Yes actually turn up.

On a first come basis

It doesn’t work, as simple as that. That’s what was used at the above event and the results were upsetting.

A twitter conversation

I decided to ask my supercool twitter pals about it and here’s the conversation

Conclusions

Although I originally thought that money was not an option, I am sure that everybody will be happy to donate to charity.

At this stage this is by far the most accepted alternative. Returning the money could be a bit of an issue. Collecting the money online requires payment of fees and so forth, so in my opinion a straight donation policy with no returning option may work better in terms of planning.

A must is to have a symbolic contribution ranging from 8£ to 10£ sounds good to me (convert if you are not sure). Charging more than that brings SUV thoughts to my mind.

What’s your opinion?

The issue is not closed at all. Do you have an engaging way to enusre attendance? Do we need to use money?