Hosting an event for the first time

Back in March, I had the experience of hosting/organising my first event. The Champions of Accessibility Network (CAN), is a community network that brings together people from companies across the world to share experiences of running and being involved in their accessibility networks.

While working at Code Computerlove (Code) I offered our office at the WPP Campus in Manchester as a space for an in-person Manchester meetup!

Hosting and organising an event is not something I have ever done previous to this, but the space Code has is lovely and I also wanted to try and give something back to a community that had inspired and supported me when setting up the Code champions network.

A large digital display with the Champions of Accessibility Network logo on. Designed by Toby Burkill.

In this note I just wanted to write up some tips and things to remeber for next time, as I learned a lot doing this.

Preparation

As this was the first time organising an event, I massively underestimated the amount of time and communication it would take to get everything needed in place, this included;

  • Food and drink
  • Event space booking and setup
  • Estimating numbers and arranging visitor access
  • Getting all the timings right for food delivery, drink quantities, event space times
  • Checking tech setups
  • Ensuring the event space was suitability accessible

Some of these things I sorted in good time, but others I mistakenly thought it would be ok or even better to leave until the week before. However, this led to many communications all at once, sometimes from 4/5 different people a day.

In future, I will ensure that as much as I can do in good time is sorted.

Kindness, empathy and honesty

A lot of the times when I was reaching out to the various people I needed to, I tried to be as polite and honest as people about the lack of experience I had doing this kind of thing.

I got an amazing response from people willing to help out and empathetic towards the situation. Some even going the extra mile to help out.

The whole experience showed me that kindness, empathy, and honesty go along with people, as does receiving it back.

Reach out

When I first started planning and organising the event, I was trying to do it all on my own, letting things get on top of me a little and finding it quite stressful at times, I could feel myself starting to feel a little burnout, especially with regular work commitments and such on top.

Reaching out to people at Code who had experience with event hosting was invaluable, I got so many tips and offers to support, even on the evening, which was lovely.

I regret not reaching out earlier, as I feel it would have helped me, especially in terms of setting things in motion sooner. I didn't want to make people feel like they had to help out, especially as it was an after-work event.

A group from Code even turned up for as long as they could at the event which I was grateful for.

Don't overthink

This one was pretty difficult to be fair. Something that I'm trying to work on and not do as much of is worry/behave based on what "others" think. I felt that I would be judged if nobody turned up, or there wasn't enough food/it was unsuitable, not the right amount of drinks, the space wasn't suitable for everyone, etc I put myself under a lot of pressure and started thinking about worst-case outcomes.

Worth noting that nobody made me feel like this and wasn't ever given any expectations or pressures, just my mind started going into overdrive.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but looking back I realise that people were incredibly grateful just to have the event to attend and a space to do that with any food/drink at all. I think it exceeded expectations, especially for the network founders.

Try and enjoy it!

This one is probably related to my previous learning about overthinking. As I was so busy rushing around making sure everything was ok and thinking about timings, I don't feel I appreciated the event as much as I would have if just attending.

We had two amazing talks that sparked some open and interesting discussions, but in the back of my mind, I was preoccupied with the event running.

Next time, hopefully with the experiences and learning, I can enjoy it more.

Special thanks

First to the founders of the CAN community. Heather Hepburn, Charlie Turrell, and Gareth Ford Williams. they have created an amazing diverse, safe and open space an incredible amount of talemted people to share their champions network and accessibility experiences. They helped organise the guest list and the communication from them was great.

Heather Hepburn from Skyscanner and Graeme Murrell from Kirklees Council. Who gave two excellent talks at the event.

The large digital display in the Code office is a great draw for events like this, at Code, Toby Burkill a lead designer has created a lot of interactive displays for welcoming clients into the office and several events. he put together a lovely display for the event, using CAN branding and some nice little interactive touches. IT went down brillianty and as it always is when he creates then, was a talking point and something to remember the event by (Charlie, Heather and Gareth even had pictures infront of it!).

To the people at Code that helped and supported when asked and also just offering or coming along for a bit on the night; Hannah Pickford, Gillian Lee, Stef List, Lucile Vacquie, Shilpa Chinnari, Gemma Dugdale, James Carr, Jess Sherrat, Colin Preston, Elena Gallo, and Toby (again).