Over the past nine years Festival for the Future has played host to thousands of people from New Zealand and around the world. In 2020 we were gearing up to host our 10th annual event in-person, and then COVID hit. With borders closed, and ban on public events and gatherings, we made the call to transform the Festival into a virtual summit – #FFTFLive – which happened 13–17th July.
To put things in perspective – we’d never run a virtual summit before. COVID had a significant financial impact on our organisation. We designed and delivered the Festival in 3-months, from scratch, with an incredible programme of speakers and contributors – from world class entrepreneurs and leaders of business and government, to young people leading change in grassroots communities. With most of the Festival experience happening in the afternoons between 2–5pm New Zealand time across the week, we were completely blown away to connect with people in places like Nigeria and Uganda who tuned in getting up as early as 2AM to tune into the experience everyday.
This blog is a summary of the highlights, and some practical suggestions that we would like to share for others who are looking to navigate the world of online events. You can also download and read the full 2020 Festival Report here, with more detail on learning and recommendations.
Highlights – a global summit for our collective future.
COVID has affected all of us. COVID has impacted all of us. There has never been a more important time to re-imagine and re-build our world. More than 1,100 people across 57 countries took part in #FFTFLive. We designed the summit around four major themes – #Equality, #Climate, #Economy, and #Hope, and the attendee experience included a range of ways to build their connections, knowledge and skills around these themes. The major building blocks included interactive live interviews with speakers on the ‘main stage’, breakout workshop sessions, and facilitated connections and networking.
Equality – how can we build a more equitable and inclusive society?
Climate – how can we accelerate the transition to a low-carbon future?
Economy – how can we build fairer and more inclusive economies?
Hope – a renewed sense of what’s possible, inspiration & motivation beyond COVID.
Above – a glimpse of the Festival programme. See the full programme – www.festivalforthefuture.co/programme
A glimpse of feedback from #FFTFLive attendees.
“I attended my first Festival for the Future back in 2014, and was lucky to be able to attend the following two years as well, with each event being a source of inspiration, motivation and hope. In 2020 the Festival went digital, and it’s been an incredible experience. It is difficult to articulate the impact of an event like Festival for the Future and to summarise what I’ve learnt, but what I do know for sure is that this moment in time that we are all living through is an incredible opportunity to enact radical change.”
Ellen Lear, Content Marketing Specialist at The Warehouse Group
“There are no words to simply express our gratitude. It was fun, exciting and rewarding to see this summit change lives in so many ways. To put it into context – Patrick, from a refugee camp in Uganda, would wake up at 4.00am to attend, and then go off to share his learnings with other youth in refugee camps. An experience of a lifetime. Thank you!”
Esmerelda Lo Tam, Scholarship Partner, Pacific & Youth Advocate, EI8HT SPORTS
“I’ve learnt a lot and had amazing conversations. Today’s key message was ‘Hope’ and it was such an honour to hear what this meant for the speakers – Louise Mabulo, Claudia Batten, Bariz Shah, Saba Afrasayabi, Shruthi Vijayakumar, Jamie Tuuta and Bernaddette Meehan. Their stories were so inspiring and I admire them for their courage and honesty. Honestly, I can’t pick a favourite they were all amazing!”
Lia Arroyo, Aspiring software engineer and entrepreneur
A glimpse of some of the sessions from #FFTFLive…
The network effect, partnerships and collaboration.
We brought together some incredible people and organisations in a very short space of time. Because our community and network was mostly New Zealand based, we wanted to expand our reach by working with people and organisations who had much greater relevance and street cred in other parts of the world. As an Edmund Hillary Fellow, I had some connections to entrepreneurs and investors around the world thanks to the fellowship, and had already been developing a relationships with the United Nations Development Programme. Our alumni played a critical role in helping to make introductions in this space. For example – Shay Wright from Te Whare Hukahuka connected us with the Obama Foundation; Shruthi Vijayakumar connected us with people at Global Changemakers, and the World Economic Forum; Alexia Hilbertidou from Girlboss connected us with people at One Young World. From there, it began to grow.
With every conversation we shared what we were trying to do, and whether these people and organisations might be up for collaborating with us in some way. In almost every case, people were only too willing to be involved, and the generosity and support demonstrated was incredible. The Festival content and experience was very much co-designed and shaped by the community, and the new virtual format meant that people could contribute and participate from almost anywhere in the world. Below are are few of the organisations involved, though there are many others who contributed to the experience!
Platforms and tools we used to create the experience.
The main event platform that we used for #FFTFLive was Hopin (www.hopin.to), as well as ZOOM (www.zoom.us) for the breakout workshop sessions. Hopin is a virtual venue with multiple interactive areas to help attendees connect and engage. Attendees move in and out of rooms just like an in-person event and enjoy the content and connections throughout. The Hopin platform includes a main stage area, breakout sessions, live video and text based chat functions, a marketplace feature to showcase organisations and opportunities, as well as connection and networking functions.
In terms of the design and planning for the event, we used a tool called Miro (www.miro.com) – which is basically a giant online whiteboard that lets you drop in images, post-it-notes, links, connections, comments, and plan out the programme and experience. Given our team was working remotely for the entire development process, Miro was the perfect tool for creative collaboration.
Reflections and where to from here?
Transforming Festival for the Future into a virtual summit has been a massive learning curve, and we are deeply grateful to the incredible people and organisations who helped out to make #FFTFLive happen.
While the experience was super different than our traditional in-person event, and there have certainly been some big challenges to overcome, there have also been some really great and unexpected highlights. COVID has demanded that we explore alternative business and delivery models, and new approaches to collaboration and working. Digital can enable connectivity like never before. We’re in the process of checking in with all of the amazing people and organisations who were involved in #FFTFLive, and are excited about the possibilities moving forwards.
We’ve got the physical venue for 2021 Festival for the Future booked, but it’s also extremely likely that we’ll be doing a lot more in the digital space too. If you’re interested in collaborating, or hearing any of the other insights we’ve learnt through this process please don’t hesitate to get in touch. The future is ours to create!
Guy and the team at Festival for the Future and Inspiring Stories.