26 March 2021 - A look back at London's Calling 2021

In August last year we had to think ahead and speculate what our world would be like. Would our pandemic lifestyle be over? Would we be able to meet in groups of more than 6 people? Would our world be returned to any sense of normal? How would we deliver London's Calling 2021? We were learning more about the virus and knew that it was more prevalent in colder months. If we wanted to keep our cadence of a March date then the prospect of an in-person event seemed very slim.

We decided to de-risk the process and deliver 2021 in a fully virtual format. We also decided that for this year we were to be kind to ourselves. The pandemic had impacted us all in different ways. We were still keen to deliver the show but we needed to do it in a way that wouldn't break us. 

The Attendify App

A fully virtual conference is a different proposition to an on-site in-person event. For fully virtual you have to consider how you are going to deliver the day, the technology to use. We settled on the event app Attendify. We used it last year, originally as a networking tool. This year we used the platform to be the centre point for our content as well as collaborating.

The App has a clean look to it, and easy to navigate for the end user. The Homepage, or Town Hall, showed the main chat area for collaboration, a view of all the content streams and the ability to click to other areas within the app, such as the Sponsors pages and rooms.

From the backend we could manage attendees and view stats, such as the number of people who had entered into the space, the number of messages created and pictures uploaded.

I really enjoyed the collaboration from the attendees and sponsors using the chat function on the Town Hall page and in the dedicated speaker rooms. Many shared images of their pets, swag, T-shirts, watch buddies, views from home and the outputs from visiting the sponsor rooms, notably their personal silhouettes and caricatures. 

Content

Front end tech sorted, now came content. London’s Calling has a great reputation in the market as one of the best community events, so we attract quality speakers. We follow a blind review process for selection. This year we had a record number of presentations delivered. They were all pre-recorded, including the Keynote. On the day we asked our speakers to join the room’s dedicated chat for their talk.

I submitted a talk this year and was pleased to be selected. It was the 5th year of speaking at the event, grateful that I didn’t do it last year considering the pivot we had to make, and how I ended up running around the venue during the breaks filling air with random content, often with a Photo Booth prop on my head.

This year I recorded my talk very early on so I could concentrate with the delivery side. On the day I joined attendees for my presentation in the dedicated chat room. Normally, when you deliver a talk in person you can engage with the audience as you speak. I did wonder how the experience would be as a recorded version, but actually it worked really well. I announced my presence on the chat at the beginning and this encouraged my audience to chat too. I had an interactive bunch throughout my session, sharing their thoughts and feedback. It was an engaging experience. Usually at the end of an in-person talk you get a sense of relief and a ‘speakers adrenaline high’. I didn’t quite get the full feeling but certainly a sense of achievement and engagement with my audience. Mission accomplished.

The T-shirt

Let’s talk about the iconic London’s Calling T-shirt. Last year I ended up with hundreds in my kitchen as they arrived too late to give out on the day to the few who joined us and the fact that we pivoted to virtual. Instead, I had to quickly place them into storage until we finally distributed them out to attendees. 

This year I didn't have to worry about any T-shirts or physical swag lingering about. We took the early decision to use one of Todd's other projects, Shirtforce, to act as our distributor and raise a bit of cash for charity at the same time. The design of the T-shirt is always well considered but I think this year it was very thought out with lots of Covid lifestyle nudges, such as; our protagonist wore a mask, and a Trouble Maker hoodie, a shout out to Shirtforce. We ensured that other characters were well represented in terms of gender and ethnicity. We also made a nod to the 5G conspiracy theory and dropped a few Covid shapes on the back of the shirt. And, for the first year we offered 3 colour options to pick from, although our official colour theme was red.

Our Sponsors

No event can happen without the support from sponsors and this year was no different. We wanted to thank our sponsors from last year and offer them first refusal to be part of the 2021 event and it was encouraging that most were positive. We curated 3 sponsorship options, Awareness, Engagement and Demo Jam, keeping it simple for all parties. Our Engagement Sponsors were given access to a virtual meeting room where they could receive attendees, show demos and also host entertainment. Entertainment on offer was our returning Photo Booth in digital format and Caricature artist and this year they were joined by a Silhouette artist and a Magician. 

Our Keynote, Ben Hammersley

Ben had been on our radar for a few years as a potential Keynote but it never seemed to happen. Step forward a pandemic and suddenly all bets were off. We secured Ben in December and were super excited. Ben was also quite into us, he gets what we, as a Salesforce ecosystem, try to achieve on a daily basis and likes that we share our knowledge. So when he opened up his keynote with his meme "shout out to my people", he meant it. Ben was also open to however he could support us for the day and kindly agreed to an interview. I thought our interview would run for about 20 minutes; we'd smash through some questions and then proceed to recording the Keynote. Nope. The interview went on for around 45 minutes and we had to rearrange to record the Keynote another day as we were in danger of crashing into another speaker's recording slot. Ben has a wicked sense of humour, in addition to being insanely intelligent. He's the kind of guy who'd you want to listen to for hours, with drinks and food in keen supply. It's a desperate shame that this isn't situation normal as I think that Ben would have stayed with us for the after party to regale many a story and possibly drink us under the table too. 

The Delivery of the Day

Imagine running a TV network for the day that owns 7 different channels of content, 6 within the App and one for YouTube. Imagine being responsible to ensure that every second of the time had some form of content showing. Well, that was London's Calling 2021 for the team and our Tech support, Ricardo. From 08:30-18:00 we had organised content. 

Our main content was our speakers presentations, along with the Demo Jam and our Keynote. We planned for 5 minutes between the talks and a lunch break to allow people to take breaks and select their next talk or check out our sponsors rooms. We used the time to to meet our contractual obligations to our sponsors to show their adverts and give shout outs. We also filled air with competition announcements, next up features and anything else we could come up with.

The aim was to create one long video of the day per stream. That's a lot of content, and I can tell you, with content comes bloopers. We're working on producing a bloopers reel from the day, the bits of content that, for whatever reason hit the cutting room floor. I can tell you there are some gems to be found!

The After Party

We hadn't planned for an after party. It was only in the final week that we got talking about the previous year and what happened after the show had finished. For us at the venue, we had a very small party with a bar, food and even a band. For Kerry and Todd at their homes, their post event come down was rather deflated. They chatted for a bit and then left their Zoom call. We realised that, even though we all would feel battered, to just sign off as we wrapped up the day wouldn't be enough. Hence the after party announcement as the Keynote finished. I'm so glad that all the LC team joined the party along with some smiley faces of attendees, speakers and sponsors. It was very reassuring to get immediate feedback from the day and to finally kick back and enjoy a well deserved drink.

Events never run perfectly. Fact. So to hear how people thought that London's Calling 2021 was a slick affair and how for some, they thought it was the best virtual conference they had attended, this was deeply touching. Thank you. As a team, there is a lot of love for this event and we do our best to deliver something that we are all proud of. We work together so well. We always deliver. So to my team mates, thank you - Francis, Kerry, Louise and Todd. And a thank you too, to Ricardo, our Tech. 

People asked us if running a virtual event is harder than an in-person event. The answer is yes, as you have to be super organised and think of everything in advance. But then Francis said this; "neither, it will be next year". Damn him, he's right. We've nailed in-person, hybrid and virtual formats. What the hell do we do next year?