My First Event

Earlier today Lauren Schuhmacher posted a review of "The Digital Currency Round Table". There she provided, hopefully, an unbiased analysis of the event and what went right/wrong. Now I'm here to tell you what it was like planning it. It should be mentioned, however, that this wasn't your standard monthly meetup. I had been working on this event with CoinApex and we're hoping to do something of the sort again next semester.

Advertising:

We got really lucky here. The incredibly capable Andy Johnson of CoinApex designed some kickass advertising for us. Not only did we have a great poster and post cards around campus, but he also put up a great site at digitalcurrencyroundtable.com!

Speakers:

Connections are key here. The only reason this event happened is because I was able to get an introduction to the board of CoinApex. If I had not been given that introduction, then I seriously doubt I would have been able to pull this event together.

I met with Alex Waters and Sarah Tyre, they loved the idea I pitched, and the rest was just those two calling their friends and getting them involved! Getting quality speakers is really a connections game.

You can find bios on the speakers at the website posted above.

Food:

I made a mistake here. We did fine with the amount, but unfortunately I forgot to announce that people should go get some before the event started! We got going with the discussion before a box had even been opened!

Overshoot on amount, and be SURE people know the food is available!

Setup:

Most likely your venue will be able to set things up for you before the event, but make sure you've contacted them about this. I've had friends who forgot to do this and just assumed that the venue would take care of it, and when they showed up before the event nothing was ready. Be sure you know what you need, and make this list clear to the venue.

Attendees:

There are a lot of opinions on how you should how about getting attendees. In this instance I chose to offer free pizza for the students, and CoinApex sent out a media alert to their network, as well as a few email blasts to their mailing lists.

We also chose to stream the event in an effort to provide accessibility to those who couldn't attend (we got a lot of views on this).

Followup:

We are currently working on followup now. All the speakers we invited are receiving packets of our marketing material with a hand written note thanking them for their participation. In addition to this we are sending a packet to individuals we are hoping to have speak in the future.