Three-Day Virtual Festival with 450 Speakers, 140 Sessions and 7,000 Attendees: B.PHL 2020
About the Client:
B. PHL awakens the innovative spirit in all of us, encouraging attendees and participants to learn, connect and discover new ways to think and do. Founded in 2019, B.PHL’s mission is to highlight Philadelphia as an amazing place to live and work; create meaningful connections between people and organizations doing innovative work; and ignite new ideas, inspiring change-makers of the future.
B. PHL Fest 2020 was a virtual-hybrid celebration of inspiration, connection, and innovation. The 3-day series of workshops, meetups, and curated experiences put the spotlight on innovative recovery efforts to kickstart the economy. From the beginning, B. PHL Fest was designed to feature diverse speakers and perspectives to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, and this year, racial justice. B.PHL invited everyone to the virtual table to be part of the discussions and actions to permanently end systemic and structural racism throughout the region and beyond.
About the Project:
When B.PHL made the decision to pivot the second annual event to a virtual format, the co-founders reached out to hire BLME to ensure that the virtual experience exceeded both speaker and attendee expectations, and to support the internal team in finding innovative ways to complete their mission of connecting, inspiring and igniting in the new virtual world.
Primary: Virtual Event Management, Speaker Correspondence
Secondary: Day-of Virtual Event Support, Post-Event Reporting
Processes:
Beth, as the primary contact for this event, initially met with the internal B.PHL team for the first scheduling meeting, which set the groundwork for the first set of speaker communications/confirmations.
Over the course of the next several months, Beth met with the team daily to ensure that all of the stakeholders were on the same page with respect to the project timeline, internal and speaker-facing deadlines, and the growing list of speakers and sessions being added to the Festival. The team, including the other agencies who were supporting the Festival, used Airtable to communicate updates and changes as it related to session topics, speakers, additions to the schedule and website updates.
Beth worked with the team to develop a speaker resource page, including a training protocol for the speakers to familiarize themselves with the event platforms, Bizzabo and On24, prior to the start of the event. The team decided to offer interactive webinars to show the tech, as well as written instructions and a recorded video. In addition to making sure that the speakers were comfortable, it was imperative to leave time to upload the presentations for each session into the tech prior to the event for a seamless transition between slides and media.
Additionally, Beth developed run of shows for the technical support in each session, and helped to assign technical moderators and session moderators ‘backstage’ for each. As with live events, contingency planning is imperative. With virtual events, making sure that there are alternatives in the case that the tech does not work properly during the event is key. In the final weeks leading up to the event, Beth supported the team in carefully planning each worst-case scenario and backup plans for each. Lastly, the team assigned an individual to check in with the speakers backstage prior to each session to make sure the tech is working correctly, and that all speakers were present prior to the start of their particular interview, panel discussion, fireside chats and workshops.
Results:
Close to 7,000 people signed up for the event.
Attendees hailed from 37 countries and 49 US states.
B.PHL had 140 sessions over the three days, not including the Film Festival, and over 350 speakers.
Speaker lineup included Issa Rae, Nick Offerman, America Ferrara, Pitbull and more.
B.PHL also offered socially distant in-person experiences for those who live in the Philadelphia region.