Friday 10th December: What’s the future for events and conferences?

December 10, 2021

Happy Friday! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Peter.

This is a very timely piece from FIPP. As the UK reintroduces compulsory mask wearing and vaccination passports for many venues, Ashley Norris is looking at how the events and conference sector might look post-Omicron. TLDR - virtual events are here to stay.

Ashley makes the point that, just a couple of weeks ago, publishers appeared confident that 2022 would be the year they returned to major in-person, live events and conferences. Then the Omicron variant took hold and all bets are off.

But even before we knew about Omicron, publishers had come to see online events as more than a 'pandemic-induced bolt-on'. This piece features lots of practical advice on running successful virtual events, gathered, ironically, at a session held during the PPA's Independent Publisher conference in London last month.

To say that it’s been a bad year for Facebook would be an understatement. But the overall relationship between publishers and platforms has shifted dramatically over the course of the year – and not necessarily for the better. Mr Chris Sutcliffe rounds up the key platform moments of the year as part of our Media Moments 2021 report.

Jon Connell, the brains behind the launch of The Week back in 1994, is launching another news digest publication, but digital this time. The Knowledge will follow a similar digest format, but rather than stick to a weekly cycle, it will be centred on a daily newsletter. Connell says: "People now expect their information daily rather than weekly."

It's the most wonderful time of the year... when Nieman Lab launches its annual 'Predictions' series. Each year, some of the smartest people in journalism and digital media say what they think is coming in the next 12 months. The first posts came out earlier this week and the series will update through December 17th.

This week's podcast:

This special episode of Media Voices includes the audio of our launch presentation for the Media Moments 2021 report. Chris, Peter and Esther each outline which media moment of the year they found interesting, before being joined by an expert panel of media analysts to dissect the year.

We've extended the entry deadline for the Publisher Podcast Awards to December 17th. But that's only a week away so make sure getting your entries submitted is top of your to-do list next week. If you've not got a podcast yourself, please do make sure industry friends and colleagues are aware - we love celebrating brilliant publisher podcasts.