October 2021

MAD//Fest London 2021 was the marketing industry’s big pivot to hybrid events and the sector’s first in-person festival since the pandemic. Over 4000 VIP attendees visited the in-person event held outdoors in a car park at east London’s Old Truman Brewery and a further 4000 accessed the event via the interactive virtual platform. From food cooked up by Dishoom to a Campari bar and a virtual pub, MAD//Fest London was a triumphant and vibrant return for live events and an innovative example of a large scale hybrid festival.

Daring to be different is in MAD//Fest’s DNA. So when Covid hit, it was on-brand for MAD//Fest London to be first out of the blocks with 2021’s only in-person major marketing festival and Adland’s first genuinely hybrid event.

Before the pandemic, meeting people in-person at various global gatherings was central to how the industry did business.

MAD//Fest London 2021 was all about bringing the community back together in real life - a huge challenge in a year characterised by government restrictions. Our plan was to deliver MAD//Fest London in real life by transforming a giant car park at London's Old Truman Brewery into an outdoor playground for a VIP-only audience of 4000 industry professionals with an incredible line-up of content, networking and complimentary food and drink from brands like Dishoom, Diageo and Campari.

But the innovation and ambition did not stop with the physical event. Conscious that demand for limited tickets would be high and that international attendees would be unable to travel to London, we decided to build a powerful and complementary digital platform allowing virtual attendees to enjoy the content, socialise and network with in-person attendees.

MAD//Fest was billed as the marketing industry’s great reunion - a vibrant hybrid event celebration of innovation, creativity, fun and networking. Crucially, our aim was to seamlessly combine an in real life festival with an interactive digital platform capable of delivering a rich event experience for physical and online attendees.

We partnered with Socio to deliver MAD//Fest’s ambitious hybrid experience. MAD//Fest has an in-app only ticket policy, meaning attendees must use the app to gain access to the event and navigate the show. Encouraging usage of the app has huge benefits in terms of driving value for sponsors and attendees and improving the event experience. Attendees had a unique QR code within the app and attendees were able to print tickets themselves instantly. This approach cut queuing times by 50%. 100% of attendees downloaded the app and more than 21,000 connections were made at the show.

More than 4000 virtual attendees were able to use the desktop and mobile apps to stream content, engage via live polls and Q&A, make connections and meet with virtual and in-person delegates. Our digital platform facilitated both online and onsite attendees to arrange one-to-one meetings, video calls, e-booth meets and serendipitous conversations in our micropub where attendees could strike a conversation over a virtual pint.

At MAD//Fest, we have always favoured live content over pre-records. Although live production is challenging, it produces a more authentic and engaging experience. We invested significantly to achieve outside broadcast production values.

Finally, our attendees expect our content to be available on-demand. We filmed every session, edited onsite and had every session available on our YouTube channel within days of the event taking place. By investing in technical production, we have set the bar within marketing events for hybrid events.

2021 taught us that there is an insatiable appetite for in-person events. Our competitors had gone virtual-only, so we had the perfect opportunity to create hype and differentiate through our channels.

We positioned MAD//Fest as the industry’s big reunion and developed an offer that was almost ‘too good to be true’ The event was VIP-only, meaning the vast majority of attendees did not pay for a ticket, guaranteeing a large audience of people our sponsors want to meet.

Next, we packed four theatres with incredible speakers and £20k brand challenges from Diageo, Reckitt, Pizza Hut, M&S and Boots. We marketed the event as an experience like no other. We partnered with brands such as Dishoom, Campari and William Grant to give attendees a free all inclusive package of food and drinks.

After an 18 month live events hiatus, this created a huge amount of positive sentiment and this model has never been done before in our sector at this scale. Virtual attendees were promised a fully interactive experience with opportunities to arrange 121 meetings with sponsors, participate in Q&A and strike a conversation in our virtual pub.

In-person MAD//Fest tickets sold out and the event attracted a combined digital and physical audience of over 8000. MAD//Fest’s uniqueness was also a driver of our sponsorship sales strategy. MAD//Fest sponsors played a crucial role in delivering the event experience through their activations such as pubs, ice cream vans and cabanas.

By all metrics and in the most challenging of years, this was the most successful MAD//Fest ever. We doubled both our revenue and sponsorship on 2019, attracting some of the biggest players in the industry such as Amazon, Waze and Taboola. All sponsorship inventory was sold out 3 weeks before the event.

4036 people attended MAD//Fest, making the event our largest gathering yet. The virtual offering attracted a further 4,251 online attendees for an interactive event experience, which provided global exposure for the MAD//Fest brand and additional value for sponsors. 3 major sponsors were unable to attend the event in-person due to travel restrictions and company policies - all 3 have rebooked for 2022 and increased their investment. Overall the rebooking rate was 56%.

The event had an overall NPS score of +61, a significant improvement on 2019’s event (+46). 21,460 connections were made via the mobile and desktop apps, cementing MAD//Fest’s reputation as the most networking-focused festival in the UK.

MAD//Fest also received praise from high profile leaders such as Sir Martin Sorrell, legendary agency exec Rory Sutherland and broadcaster June Sarpong, who described the event as “like Cannes in a car park on Brick Lane”. To be compared positively to the marketing industry’s most high profile event shows that MAD//Fest has landed in the A-league of industry events and is pioneering the hybrid future of festivals.

Executing a safe, fun and ground-breaking hybrid major outdoor festival during a pandemic is challenging and we needed to reassure attendees who hadn’t been to an event for 18 months. We worked closely with Dettol to provide hand sanitiser stations across the event, provided table service for over 4000 attendees and after the delay to removing the tier 3 restrictions, had to redesign the show 2 weeks out.

Another challenge was running the event outdoors in the most unusual of venues - an east London car park. The logistics of the event were complex and included the build and breakdown of a huge weather-proofing canopy. Outdoor events add complexity and cost, both of which had to be carefully managed. We learned that a creative idea (running the event outdoors in a car park) and sound operational management can triumph under the most challenging circumstances.

Producing live hybrid events is technically challenging. As we had 150 onsite and remote speakers across 4 live-streamed stages, we invested in broadcast quality production values to guarantee a positive experience We believe that high production values are integral to the brand Running MAD//Fest as a truly hybrid event was a bold decision and came with risks.

We had to work within the parameters of regulations, company policies and changing sentiment around participating in events, Our lesson is that fortune favours the brave - 63% of sponsors re-booked, giving us an opportunity to take MAD//Fest to create a bigger, bolder and more daring event in 2022.

MAD//Fest 2021 was unique in the marketing calendar. None of our competitors delivered a hybrid event driven by mass attendance at a physical location. It was our boldest and most ambitious event yet and an authentic representation of our Dare To Be Different mantra. We thrive on taking calculated risks and ultimately the reputation of the brand has been boosted by the decision to go hybrid.

MAD//Fest 2021 was all about overcoming adversity and taking innovation to another level. This manifested itself in every aspect of the show, from the invite-only model to providing a completely free experience of content, networking and food and drinks from brands such as Dishoom and Diageo. Taking onboard these costs and investing in production and event experience is a decision that ultimately has been justified by the commercial performance of the business and satisfaction scores.

Such a bold and ambitious approach was also present in our diverse, live content. We could have made things easier by playing out pre-recorded videos but felt this was detrimental to the event experience. We expanded our reputation as the event for new innovation by working with Diageo, Reckitt, M&S, Pizza Hut and Boots to provide live start-up pitches with a combined £100k of investment available. This interactive and compelling content proved to be hugely popular content for physical and online attendees.
In short, MAD//Fest was a triumph over adversity, a lesson in risk v. reward and gives the business an incredible growth opportunity.