At Trademark, we’re always ready to explore new frontiers and 2020 certainly presented us with challenges and opportunities in the event space! Having produced three in-person conferences for Slack between 2017 and 2019, it became clear that Slack Frontiers 2020 would be going virtual so we were already poised to pivot. With 126 speakers, 36 breakout sessions, and a global audience of 12,000 attendees across three time zones, our team had to find just the right platform partner to realize Slack’s vision.
Even though this was Slack’s first-ever fully virtual conference, our challenge didn’t change. We were still tasked with building an awe-inspiring and memorable experience that would bring together—and celebrate—all the unique and varied worlds Slack connects on a daily basis. We still had to figure out the best way to bring people together and make lasting connections. And we still had to execute this event with the same creativity and attention to detail as our in-person events.
The task at hand:
- Shoot 54 breakouts and 6 keynotes over 10 days, including distributing cameras, lights, microphones and conducting 126 tech checks for speakers located in 71 Cities, 20 States and 6 Countries
- Deliver live, simulive and on-demand content for audiences in three time zones across North America, EMEA, and APAC regions
- Support live product demos
- Create roundtables localized to each market
- Support the Slack Workplace for all participants, with channels for support, sales, administrative and IT roles
As a full-service creative agency that has produced events since 1998, we moved quickly and drew on our robust experience as a film production company. We sent broadcast level kits out to four team keynote presenters in Brooklyn, upstate New York, Phoenix and Oakland, CA. We organized a COVID-compliant, three -day shoot with top Slack executives at their San Francisco headquarters.
Highlights of the conference included:
- a panel of CEOs of Major Tech Companies, including Box, PagerDuty, Zoom and Slack
- a roundtable hosted by Next Chapter and featuring the hosts of the popular podcast, Ear Hustle with Aly Tamboura from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
It was a new frontier for results, too:
- Attendance blew away goals by 3X
- 3,360 minutes of recorded content
- Post-event experience survey met “extremely satisfied” targets across all categories
- Audience engagement metrics across the globe exceeded goals
From generating an exciting global buzz, to precision timing of sessions, to easy-to-use discussion areas, we worked diligently to get Slack Frontiers right on every level. And it didn’t go unnoticed. Richard Marshall, from The Analyst Syndicate, attended Slack Frontiers and reported in his blog that it was “the best virtual event I have attended so far this year. Both a superb experience and a great source of insight, Slack Frontiers was the first virtual event to get this stuff right.”
From digital content to activations to engagements, or integrated registration to stage keynote and breakout sessions, we’d jump at the chance to help you pull off your virtual event. Contact us today.
