4,000 attendees, 5 days, 2 events, over 10 stages.
This was
@AVAX Summit I in 2022.
How did a 3-person events team execute this fully sold-out Summit with just 3 months to plan and execute? Here's the full play-by-play on how Jade Levinson and I co-created the first Avalanche Summit and made waves in how Web3 events are done today.
At the end of December 2021,
@el33th4xor and
@kevinsekniqi came to us with a request: Launched during the COVID pandemic, Avalanche needed a flagship event to rally around. The developer community was multiplying, and an event that can accelerate this growth, while bringing the broader ecosystem together was required. The rest of 2022 was looking to be highly competitive with other events, so we needed to strike fast, like 3 months fast.
To kick things off, we needed a focus. Most conferences start with a "template." Whether it's a convention center or a hotel ballroom, you have stages for programming, food and beverages, and an area for sponsors to set up booths. We knew that if we wanted to stand out, a standard "template" wasn't going to do the trick. The entire events team came from a music events backgrounds and knew that music festivals had a powerful model of focusing on diversifying and aligning every small detail towards the entire experience, rather than just focusing on the music.
And from here, Avalanche Summit was born. Here's how the entire Summit was structured to emulate the experience of a festival, but for the Web3 industry:
- Find out-of-the-ordinary venues
- Ensure that there were spaces for all kinds of people: small to large, serious to fun, exclusive to inclusive, and more.
- Book MCs, speakers, and other talent that come from all walks of life. Don't just book the obvious
- Incorporate as much of the local culture as possible–from food to performances
- Create spaces that go against what's expected
- Create themes that are pervasive not only visually but also through audio and other senses
- Question the "status quo." Just because 99% of the other events do it doesn't mean that you should, too
The results:
- Over 4,000 tickets sold
- Over 300 hackathon participants across 3 days
- Over 400 speakers booked from organizations like
@initc3org,
@Mastercard,
@Lemonade_Inc, and more
- Focused on a theme of eco-friendly, reusable design. This came to life throughout all of the fabrications thanks to
@Spacesworks.
- 1 main hall with reinvented sponsorship booths and a flow focused on maximizing attendee "collisions." Not just a block of booths but one that actually flowed and allowed for natural encounters
- 2 large speakings stages full of general-topic keynotes and panels
- 3 large workshop stages full of developer-focused sessions
- 1 decompression playground full of massages, sound baths, and games to prioritize collaboration but also take you out of the seriousness of the programming
- Local food and beverages everywhere you went: paella, jamón, and more delicious Barcelona and Spanish cuisine
- Musicians and visual artists throughout! It's insane to say, but we had
@StavrozMusic, Satori, Unders, Britta Arnold,
@nico_stojan, Sainte Vie, and more
- 48% of panelists were women out of 60 panels
- All sponsorships sold out, generating millions in revenue
- Major coverage of the event in publications like
@TechCrunch,
@CoinDesk,
@blockworks, and more
- Live Castell and other live performances, local to Barcelona
- Worked closely with Barcelona-based communities like
@Web3Family_,
@CBCat_io
Although we had 3 full-time events team members, there were countless of contributors across Ava Labs and internally. Big shoutout to the crew:
- Jade Levinson,
@FreebornChelsea, Shelby McAuliffe, for being the lean, mean events team
-
@luigidemeo, being a swiss army knife for many things
-
@JohnNahas84, knows everyone in enterprise and is able to lock them in
-
@encycloplydia, closing out speakers from traditional finance and institutions
- @xo_poseidon, first time formally leading sponsorship and crushed it
-
@DanielxKilleen, can get you any speaker or close any sponsorship
-
@ARockyRock, executed the swag, a dedicated merch shop on-site, and much more
-
@Carriannef421,
@kkwykemayo, Jelena, @LinGrimz for driving all finopslegal
- @leelaughs5x,
@kafka2046, Andreina for managing all legal matters
-
@_PatrickSutton,
@kaitstarch, for getting Summit on every major publication–both English and Spanish
-
@sam_okx, doing everything and anything Summit
-
@exk200,
@nadim_xyz,
@j0eferrara,
@edc for going deep into their BD relationships and bringing them onboard
-
@perryjsmith, dominating everything customer experience and support
-
@kyledineen, being a social media wizard