The conference dream team

· 3 min read

Note: This post is a PDA aimed at the people who made this year’s conference possible. If that’s not for you, move along!

Last year, as we entered the final months of 2023, planning for the 2024 edition of All Day Hey! was well underway. The speakers, suppliers and venue were already locked down, and I was ramping up promotion for 2024. The 2nd of May was primed to be our best conference yet. Having listened to the feedback from previous years and gone to town on accessibility and attendee experience, I was so excited to see it all play out. And then, a huge life event happened! We found out Ailsa was pregnant, and we’d just been to get our 12-week scan. We had a due date, the 1st of May!

The date clash did nothing to dampen our excitement that we would have a little boy joining the family in 2024. Once we’d let the news settle in, there was a logistical conversation to have about how the conference was going to work. My knee-jerk reaction was, “There’s no way this can happen now”, but once I’d taken my cap of self-importance off, I questioned, “Why can’t we?”.

The runbook

For years, I’ve documented the conference logistics in a runbook. This contains absolutely everything about the conference, from the supplier and venue contact details (with the arrangements I’ve made with each of them) to the venue set-up logistics, the AV rider, the speaker schedule, the hospitality requirements for speakers, and the attendee experience guidance (including non-negotiables like accessibility and live captioning).

I set up a call with those who have been instrumental in the event for years to ask for their help.

My first call was to our loyal MC, Phil, who was incredibly supportive of the news (of course, I mean, have you met Phil?!). I discussed my desire to run the conference as usual but without me being at the helm of logistics on the day. My following calls were to James and Jack, tasked with event logistics, and James, who took the lead on registration and marketing. It takes a special team to run a conference. Anyone who knows me knows that this conference is special to me. I care about the community surrounding the conference so much. The community has to be front and centre of what we do.

The overwhelming response was, “Yes, we can do this”. And that was that. We had a run-through of the runbook nearer to the event to iron out any concerns and clarify roles, but we’ve been doing this for 8 years now, and showing no sign of stopping.

Make yourself redundant

So what’s the takeaway? Make yourself redundant. Create processes and systems that mean you are replaceable. Not because you want to be replaced but because if you want to create something of permanence, it’s a requirement.

I don’t plan on missing another conference in the future, but it’s great to know that this thing is now bigger than any single person, and that feels pretty good.

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