On Tuesday, we announced the revised version of All Day Hey!, All Day Hey! Live. We’re delivering the conference as intended through a live stream on the same date (7th May), where attendees will still benefit from the same schedule and social aspects as if they were there in person. It has taken a considerable amount of energy to get things to this point, so I’d just like to highlight a few things around it.
The safety and wellbeing of the community that supports Hey! and All Day Hey! is, and always will be the main focus for me. Watching the events of the pandemic unfold over the last month or so, it became clear that the only sensible option was to change how we delivered the conference.
I say change because, to me, this was the only option. In a time when everything around us is getting cancelled, I wanted to prove that as an industry, the world doesn’t have to stand still. Yes, it’s a small conference, and no, it’s not going to change the world. But we need to retain a sense of normality and community. We need to keep learning and creating opportunities to be inspired.
The decision to move to a live stream meant undoing all the hard work that had already gone into organising the in-person conference. Cancelling bookings for the venue, the AV team, accommodation and travel. Once we’d done this, we had a clean slate to build the new conference off. In the last few weeks the team behind All Day Hey! have selected and configured streaming partners, reworked the brand to work for an online offering, coded a new site to accept gated entry via a digital pass, and reworked the schedule with fantastic support from our MC and speakers.
It’s absolutely crucial to me that the day the conference is streamed feels as close to the “real” thing as possible. We’re going to be working hard in the coming weeks to ensure you still get your conversations with people over coffee, you can still ask questions to the speakers surrounding their talk, you can still learn in the same way you would have done as if you were sitting right there in Everyman Cinema in the heart of Leeds. I’m sad the celebratory Negronis may have to be had from the comfort of my own home. Still, I’m sure we can similarly enjoy the post-conference social in an online format, reflecting on what we’ve learnt from the day’s events.
I’d really appreciate your support in promoting All Day Hey! Live. Let’s see if we can reach even more people now that we’re not bound by a physical location. I’m positive this is something we can do more of in the future to the benefit of a wider community.
We’re all in this together. Let’s push things forward.