The show must go on – Open Ends

This time of year is traditionally the start of the festival season in Europe and in any normal year, many of the Askia team would be heading off in camper vans to immerse themselves in a collective celebration of art, music, food, drink & humanity. But this is no normal year.

The festival and conference industry has been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and our friends in the MR industry that run their conferences are proving that adversity really is the mother of invention.

They have come up with a variety of online events that are fantastic opportunities for everyone to still learn, network and showcase, just as we would have done face to face.

Askia supports these initiatives and will be actively taking part in a number of these. Here are just some of the online events happening:

• The inimitable Lenny Murphy and his GreenBook team are hosting IIeX Forward June 15th – 17th. Registration is free and there are 45 sessions across 2 days. I am looking forward to that one very much. The event homepage is here.

• Then in France, Stéphanie Perrin and the Printemps des études organisers are running their SpringBox Event June 23rd – 25th. Another free virtual conference, with 90 webinars across 3 days. These webinars will be in the French language. Askia’s Christine Caggia is taking part on the first day with a presentation entitled “Insight nuggets – and how to find them automatically”. Christine is on at 14.00 CET. The event homepage is here.

• Into July and Askia will be one of the firms exhibiting in the Quirks Event Virtual July 14th – 16th. Steve & Dan Quirk & the team will be running the event using a professional online conferencing platform, which tries to recreate all of the aspects of a face to face conference – so as well as the talks, there will be a networking lounge, round table lunch & learns, an expo where exhibitors can provide a playlist of useful content, and provide live chats to interested delegates. Again, the event is free to register for and the event homepage is here.

I really do recommend that you reserve some time over the summer and register for these events and take advantage of a unique opportunity to listen and learn from many of your industry colleagues, without the normal cost of entry or travel. Yes, I know it is not Glastonbury and sadly there won’t be an Askia party on the first evening! But the show will go on and it will be worth seeing . . .