beyond tellerrand Berlin 2024 is over already again. I started this adventure in 2014 and much happened to the world since then. But the positive vibe at the event last week gave me a lot of hope.
Fact is that 2024 many things have been much, much harder for a lot of my event organising friends. Some had to cancel, some suffer from less attendees and most suffer from less sponsors. Companies and agencies focus on big events these days again or decide to set up and host their own events. Both often is harder and more expensive than supporting independent community events like beyond tellerrand.
Berlin 2024 turned out to be wonderful, though. The conversations I had with lovely attendees, the absolute stunning speakers who all gave their best and brought thought-provoking, inspiring, and motivating presentations and last but not least a team that excelled in being welcoming, helpful and friendly.
The wonderful two days flew by and while I thought I’d stop Berlin after this one for a while and would not run a Berlin edition in 2025 changed my mind. It changed my mind in a direction, where I now say “Now even more it is needed that I work hard on keeping this little island of friendliness and positivity”. And you, those who were there, made this with me. Your warm and wonderful feedback changed my mind and anyone to whom I mentioned that I might take a break in Berlin said “No, please not”.
But that needs your help. Spread the word about beyond tellerrand. Let other people know about it and tell them what it is and what it gave you while attending and when being back home.
I feel empty and exhausted, but my heart is full of lovely memories that will last. Thanks so much to anyone who was involved in creating a festival like this and made it what it was!
This was our second edition in Antwerp. At least for a while it will be our last one in Antwerp either. Well, at least in the wonderful Bourla Theatre as it will be restored for the next couple of years (the estimate is between 3 and 5 years). We are looking into other options for Antwerp, though, as we really like the city.
We run the complete show in Antwerp on my tech and therefore I am not able to take as many photos as usual, but here is at least a selection of photos from the days in Belgium.
I might have been slower during the last couple of weeks in replying to your emails. Well, the reason is, that I am on the road with the Smashing Team, running SmashingConf, been away with the family and am going to run and attend and speak at more events in the upcoming month.
In the last two weeks, I have been in New York, being part of the Smashing Team, running SmashingConf New York (← photos of the event), after a break of one year. Big success, great atmosphere, everybody was/is happy. After New York, arriving at 5am in Frankfurt, I went to a family birthday party and the night after, at 4am, we drove to Austria to spend a week with part of the family (as our oldest daughter is in Sydney and our son studying, they sadly have been missing) in the Austrian mountains with best weather – it was woooooonderful.
We were hiking in the mountains during the day and I was preparing beyond tellerrand during the night.
Now I had a week to work on beyond tellerrand things 24h and got a lot of stuff sorted (already also working on the Düsseldorf 25 edition – page and first speakers coming in a few days). When writing these lines I sit between boxes and tech already and still have to write a talk and prepare things for a conversation with other event organisers 🙈
So, coming up …
SmashingConf Antwerp
After last years success we are back in Antwerp in the lovely Bourla Theatre. A great venue and if you want to be part, better do this now, since the lovely theatre will be closed for the next years (see photos of last year, if you want to know what I am talking about). Right now I prepare the tech, as we use my gear to run the stage tech and also anything that is used to stream the show.
beyond tellerrand Berlin
After ten years of running beyond tellerrand in Berlin, I did not expect this one to be the toughest one in selling tickets. Never ever has a btconf sold less that this one. I think the reasons are many (Berlin changes, too many events at and around these dates with a clearer focus, death of social media etc. – happy to chat, if you want to hear my full thoughts), but one thing is very clear: anyone who comes will get the best show that’s possible. As usual. The team, the speakers and I will do out very best to make this a wonderful experience and, hey, look at this line-up. I am SO looking forward!
Festival Eastern European Design
The week after beyond tellerrand, I will be in Vilnius at the Festival Eastern European Design. Next to attending the event, I have been invited to be part of an organisers event, where we discuss problems that each of us (independent) event organisers has these days, trying to find solutions for some things, but also maybe building a network of events. I am always excited to learn about and from other events, to share knowledge and grow my network. Exciting to see what comes out of this.
Skate-Aid Night
Since a couple of years I am also (indirectly) involved in the Skate-Aid project. One of their yearly events I attend for a few years now is the Skate-Aid Night on which we raise money for new projects of Skate-Aid. This time my good friend Rob Draper made a great piece that will be auctioned and he will also be onsite doing his “Your Words, My Hands”, where he creates wonderful posters with copper or silver ink on black with your words and, well, his hands. He does this at beyond tellerrand for a while now and it is highly popular, raising quite a bit of meany each time for charity (100% of the money always goes into those charity projects).
TYPO3 Conference 2024
Marc? TYPO3 Conference. Why that, you might think. Well, I think that also people running events with a focus on certain topics understood that you need topics from beyond the tellerrand to attract people from outside their bubble. Next to TYPO3 being an excellent btconf Partner for 2024, not only talking about the people, but also about understanding an audience of an event, they invited me to be part of their T3CON24 as part of the Jury Panel and to give a talk (which I also still need to write 😱).
They used another photo in the official post, but I like this one of the lovely Daniel Fau and me, “signing the contract”, way more hahaha
My talk is going to be something along the lines of “Why independent events matter for the event industry and where they come from”. If you like to come, just join us, I am happy to being able to give out a few free full conference passes for this event. Please email me to get one
If you are at any of these events, please find me and say hello. I love a conversation with other people at events and am super happy to meet you again or for the first time.
What do events/conferences/design festivals/younameit mean to you? I'd be interested in a conversation.
Speaking to a lot of event organisers recently, one issue is one they all share these days: less and less people attend their in-person events. But why?
❓ Are people generally not seeing the benefit of attending in-person events anymore?
❓ Is going to events not affordable for individuals and/or companies anymore (travel, accommodation, food and ticket add up)?
❓ Do people think that virtual events and workshops are equally working for them as in-person conferences and workshops?
❓ Is the networking aspect these days unimportant (fostering the existing network as well as growing it and meeting new people)?
❓ Do people simply don’t know and hear of especially smaller, independent events anymore (since social media is scattered all over the place, building smaller bubbles of interest and most of the platform dictated by the algorithms to be seen)?
❓ Is Covid still something why you don’t attend events?
I am honestly interested in learning about this. Why? At any of the events I attend (or run myself) people are full of praise afterwards, absolutely happy that they have been there. So why are events these days so hard to sell to people?
It would be great to hear you. No matter if you still attend events or if you stopped or never actually went to events – let me know why and I post the outcome here (or if you prefer, also on Linkedin).
I am a Mac user since I am working with computers professionally. My first Macintosh I was working with had OS 7 running and ever since I am using Apple products myself at home professionally and for private use and so does my whole family. Once you are caught in an ecosystem, it is difficult or at least quite some work to use other operating systems as they are not making it easy with missing standards to sync between different operating systems and/or family members using a different OS than you. Nevertheless I am always curious and am excited to try new hard and software to see what is state of the art.
Sine the beginning of the year Asus is one of the main partners of my event series beyond tellerrand and I looked into what they are actually building. I got a Zenbook Duo and after I thought how the two screens in it could be of any use, I have to say, I love th two screens. But before I even started the computer and used it, I was impressed with the build quality of the laptop. The two screens are brilliant and the detachable keyboard is super thin, yet has a good and solid feeling when typing.
Well, yesterday it happened that I had been invited to a launch event of the new ProArt series, targeting creators and professionals. I really don’t have to say or write this, but the quality of those machines is really nice. They feel high quality, have good displays and hardware in general and as soon as I get one of the devices to test them for longer, I am happy to give you more insights.
So, even though Windows still feels kind of painful I have to say, if you are a Windows user or consider getting a Windows machine, go and check the hardware of Asus, like the ProArt series or their Zenbooks for example.
Next to this the event, being an in-person event, once more has proven, that there is a reason to attend an event in person. I made many interesting and nice people and really had a great day (thanks to Martin from Asus especially).
For years and years I am looking for a way to change the email address on my mac to not use the icloud email to send invites from out of my calendar.
Now finally I got it working. While I was looking for a way to change it on macOS, I now stumbled over a way where someone changed it for their iPad or iPhone. The option that you have on those iOS devices is not existing on your Mac, though. Therefore I simply tried to change it on my iPhone and … tada! … it is also changed on my Mac. Holy cow. It only took YEARS to finally being able to send invites to people from my beyond tellerrand email now and not from iCloud.com anymore.
You find the setting on your iPhone at: Settings -> iCloud[User] -> iCloud -> “Show All” (under “Apps using iCloud) -> iCloud Calendar -> Send & Receive
On the top you find the field “Send From” and can change the email accordingly.
