Kolejna Konferencja, or how I selfishly translated it into Next Conference, which has lost its original pun name, was the second conference I helped with. I was once again responsible for the IT side of the conference, communicating and cooperating with on-site IT personnel of the venue, and generally helping with the event.
Guests of the conference on stage during a discusion panel
For this conference, we have selected a different venue in Bydgoszcz, named Młyny Rothera. It is a great location in general. Both for event organisers and their guests, visitors and tourists. The new location required additional training and cooperation with venue personnel. The event was twice as long as the previous one, which made it a little bit harder to prepare for, as we needed to plan for a longer amount of time. Unlike our previous venue, here we had a director's booth where the presentations were run from. There was an issue with it because it was on the opposite side of the room. This, in turn, causes problems with connectivity with the remote. But it worked well enough for most of the conference. The director's booth was located near the air conditioning, which made it cold for most of the conference. We were lucky with the weather as it was surprisingly summer-like in April. This also explains the air conditioning. On the other side, we had a room where people could showcase their games. We provided as much as we could for them. During the second they we additionally set up a stream from the event where we talked to other guests before their presentations. Which setup I was responsible for.
Cast of the stream preapering to start
There was one issue I wanted to rant about. Videos in presentations. There was a bane of the conference, because every single presentation had it done in a different way; some could be played by clicking the next slide on the remote, some not. Some had outside YouTube videos or Twitch clips. Unlike presentations, where there are two main formats we have accepted, there were more ways to have videos in presentations than I can remember.
People behind the conference, I am in top left corner in each of the photos
This conference more than doubled the number of our first event. We gathered more knowledge and experience, which showed when we organised the third conference at the end of the year.
For more information about the Next Conference, see the event page.