We’ve considered organizing our Pop-Up Village within an existing event this year (we as Nadia, Noemi, me). After discussing it, the pros seemed obvious: less organizational hurdle and new opportunities to network for us, while we can bring on board a great event, strong community, our work, and resources. And we don’t multiply similar events,
I am now talking with Cohabitat (an event in Poland), and with SHA2017 - and we’ve got the news from the latter which make us question the logic of joining in. We were told that each person involved in SHA, as a participant, organizer, co-organizer, has to pay for their own ticket.
I do understand that independent event, which is not supported by funds, authorities and want to remain free from pressures and affiliations with uncomfortable partners, needs to charge a fee for participation. Yet, we have run our events very differently so far - counting on in-kind support, using community resources, and searching for affordable solutions, and crowdsourcing the organisation instead of charging high fees for the event. We also supported our community members with funds for travels when needed. The way we’ve done it has some downsides and will require regular rethinking, especially in a context of a Pop-Up Village which is to support initiaitves, but if an event charges so much for co-organisation, it seems more logical to keep on organizing our own - maybe instead inviting other smaller events to join in, on more favourable conditions?
There is a lesson here for me, and that is - a brand and the hurdles of securing a venue cost, and we can’t organise a traditionally free-of-charge event within one that sells tickets. Which is why any partner that we find running a larger event will need to understand the value of what we bring and bend some rules. Understandably, it needs more search.
The faster way: LOTE already has somewhat of a brand attached, which means if we keep on with the focus on community and people working together, LOTE, even in a festival-more-than-conference format, will still not be your usual festival.
This is something we cooked with @Alex_Levene and @Natalia_Skoczylas as there’s a chance we wont get a full package in a city’s offer - it could be that the event fits with LOTE, or that they have resources, but maybe not so many chances for us to build an ER base there as outcome (base = the Reef)
The alternative is a co-produced OpenCare Village pre-event, an Edgeryders + Partner collaboration for hands prototypes of health/ social care solutions, taking place at a major event. The magnitude for us is up to 5 care projects exhibited or demonstrated - from both our network and locally, and involving people from all over who want to contribute to the work.
The budget is split between OpenCare funding which we have already secured for our main event (covers coordination, community management and exhibitors’ recruitment and preparations ahead) and co-funding from partners:
logistic support for prototypes + general conference hardware equipment
video documentation
team travels and accommodation for a week
catering/ mobile kitchen facilities and the likes
free access to the event for a number of people in our network, as we don’t charge for Edgeryders events.
I have done some numbers for the pre-event only, and it should be around 35K in total, of which half falls on partner.