Organizing a conference

Episode transcript

Ryan Burgess
Welcome to new episode of the front end happier podcast. In our various episodes. We've talked a lot about conferences, we've attended conferences, we've recorded at conferences on stage and behind the scenes. We're actually really big fans of conferences. But one thing we haven't really dive deep into is, how does a conference come together? How do you organize it? What's all that work that goes in behind the scenes? And funnily enough, I have my guest today is Kayla, and we met at a conference I know we've met on Twitter, but first time in person was meeting at render Atlanta. So it's kind of a perfect topic for us to be talking about. She also organizes Magnolia Jas and so that's going to be an excellent topic for her to cover and share some great insights. Kayla, can you give a brief introduction of who you are, what you do, and what your favorite Happy Hour beverages?

Kayla Sween
Yeah, I am Kayla Swain. I'm the organizer for Magnolia Jas, also a front end developer, but between jobs at the moment, and my favorite, Happy Hour beverage is probably a root beer. I made a joke about that on threads recently, it was that my favorite beer was rude. And my husband was like, That's the dumbest thing you've ever posted. And I was like, well, perfect.

Ryan Burgess
It's like sometimes when it's like really dumb and cringy it's actually really good. So I like exactly. Your developer, you're dealing with the root and root beer. I like it.

Kayla Sween
There you go.

Ryan Burgess
Awesome. Well, it's actually just myself today from the front end. Happy our panelists. So I'll give my introduction. I'm Ryan Burgess. I'm a engineering manager at Netflix. In each episode, the front end happier podcasts. We'd like to choose a keyword that if it's mentioned at all, in the episode, we will all take a drink. Kayla, what did we decide our keyword is organizing, organizing, which I mean, when you're doing a conference or event there's a lot of organizing that goes into its well will will probably come up a few times. Let's dive in. Maybe I would love to know what even motivated you to take on organizing a conference like Magnolia Jas,

Kayla Sween
well, a friend of mine with a local developer, JC Hiatt started Magnolia Jas, he ran it for a couple years and then decided like, I mean, it's a lot of work, right. So he was ready to start a family. And so he's trying to step back from doing so much. So yeah, he asked me to take it over. And I didn't think about it too hard and just took it was like, Yeah, okay. And then I was like, I'll figure it out later. Right. So, yeah, that's, that's really how Magnolia JS came to me.

Ryan Burgess
I love that too. Like sometimes those things, they just fall in your lap. And you're like, I'll figure it out later. As me most of the time. Yeah. And I'm sure it took a lot of figuring out to in the long run.

Kayla Sween
Oh, yeah, still still is taking a lot of figuring out if like, this will be my third year.

Ryan Burgess
I was just gonna ask so so your third year doing Magnoli js, how long is Magnolia Jas running? This will be its fifth year. Cool. And that's coming. October 17. And 18th 17th. And 18th? I knew was the middle and I'm like, what were the dates? Awesome. So yes, which tickets are still available. If people are wanting to attend tickets will

Kayla Sween
be available, I think until like the day before the conference, but like two weeks before the price will go up. So right now it's $200. And it'll go up to $300 on like, I can't remember when it was set to sometime in early October.

Ryan Burgess
So basically get your tickets now. That'll make my life

Kayla Sween
a lot easier if you get your tickets now because I'll know what to tell the caterers.

Ryan Burgess
Oh, that's good, too. Like, yeah, you have to think about all the all the logistics on that side of things. So yeah, I mean, what are some of the things as you're right in the thick of it, because it's coming up. But what are things that you think about, from kind of the early days to like, right up until where it's right before the conference?

Kayla Sween
Yeah, I think the first thing we really start thinking about is trying to get sponsorships because if we don't have sponsors, we don't have a conference. So that's like, that's something we try to focus on earlier on. Plus, that takes a lot of time. If we have big businesses that are sponsoring, it's got to work through whatever systems they've got going on purchase orders have to be submitted, whatever. So it's probably the first thing we do. Along with that, in the same timeline, so I'm thinking like a year out for this kind of stuff a year or two at at least six months out, I guess. So. in that timeframe. It's like, getting event venues together. Like trying to get trying to start thinking about speakers, figuring out what we're gonna do, we're gonna have a C AFP over gonna invite people. Yeah, I think those are the big things.

Ryan Burgess
And of course, like, that's like high level, it's also like the little details that you start going, okay? Like, logistics of even dealing with speakers going back and forth and like, figuring out like, what they're talking about how long and like, even just on an individual level, I think of the many times I've spoken at conferences, and where I'm going back and forth with an organizer. I'm like, oh, yeah, you're doing that, like 20. Other times, or 30, depending on how many speakers are there. I'm like, it adds up quickly.

Kayla Sween
Yeah. And as a speaker myself, too, like, I mean, it's like herding cats, right? Like, trying to give everybody but like, answer questions about stuff. And especially if we're paying for travel, which we did last year, we're not gonna be well forward to this year. But whatever we were paying for travel last year, it was like trying to get everybody give me all their information. So I could, you know, booked flights booked their hotels. Everything just

Ryan Burgess
yeah, you want to make do that ahead of time so that you've locked that in that they're coming? Everything's good. Also, budget wise, you're like, How much money are we spending on all of these little things that add up quickly? Exactly. Okay, that makes a lot of sense into some of the logistics. What's one of the most challenging things that you've kind of have that you almost dread now? Because you've done in three years, right? Like, what's the one thing you're like? I just dread doing this every single time? What's the hardest thing?

Kayla Sween
spending all the money that we have? So the hardest thing, the hardest part of like, organizing in general for me is getting sponsorships. And I don't know, I don't know if it's because I'm a terrible salesperson. Or like, if it's because like, you know, because we're based in Jackson, Mississippi. And that's very important to me to keep it in Jackson. Yeah. And so it's like, and also we're like a smaller community conference. And so a lot of potential sponsors will look at how, how many attendees we've had in the past. And they just like, you know, they're like our, we're looking at, like, 1000s of attendee events, not 150. Right. But yeah, so the hardest thing for me is like, getting those sponsorships. And just like part of it is a, like, I feel weird asking for money kind of situation. But also, like, yeah, it's just, it's a lot like applying for jobs, and that you'll just like, be sending out cold emails after cold email, you'll be filling out like, I mean, all the times I have to fill out sales forms, because there's no contact information on a site. And so I'll just fill out their sales form. And sometimes I'll hear back, but I would say it's less than 10%.

Ryan Burgess
That's yeah, I can just imagine, like the amount of back and forth that you have to do just on that. And it's not like you're all here back in three days or something. Or next week, I'll have hearing back whether I got it or not, you're just kind of hoping you hear back period. Exactly. How do you choose which companies that you're deciding that would be good sponsors?

Kayla Sween
Mostly spray and pray? Like, just like, I mean, I just like a blast out emails to everybody. Because you never know, you never know if somebody's gonna say no. And like, the worst thing they could do is say No, right? But a lot of times, I'll just reach out to other companies that I know, like, have sponsored events. Or if I see somebody like, or if I'll get Twitter ads for certain companies, then I'll go to their Twitter or go to their page or something. I'll try to get them to sponsor. But yeah, those those are those of my big boys, I guess, of doing that a lot. Otherwise, mostly like me meeting people for at conferences who speak to like, both who speak and work at other companies and stuff like that, I'll ask them if they're interested in or if they're companies that are interested in sponsoring, I need to send out an email to speakers, because that's what I meant to do. Like last week was sent out an email and see if any of them if their companies would be interested in sponsoring. So the like, I don't know what her title is, technically, but she founded naturally Sefa she founded the beam path in Jackson, Mississippi, which is like a tech nonprofit to try to get people like, part of it's like trying to get people to be more like tech literate in the area. And part of its like, just kind of helping people with their computers or whatever I know, nattered Habits doing something this week, like doing more coding focus stuff, but talking about GPT and ChatGPT. But anyway, like she told me to just reach out to like even non tech companies and see how because you never know, you never know who would be interested. So

Ryan Burgess
I mean, like you said, you're cold calling so it's like yeah, I mean, if someone responds great if they don't I mean that what's the worst you hear is no. I also liked the approach of even just asking the speakers or people that you meet at conferences, because a lot of our companies, they're open to sponsoring, they have, you know, they may have budgets that may be used up, but maybe they don't. And there is value in asking them or they're like, maybe next year and like that could, you know, come back to help you in the long run, too.

Kayla Sween
I have gotten a couple of those a couple of the ones that have, like filled out the sales forum for they were like, not this year, but we have heard of you before, and we are interested in doing it next year. And I was like, great, like,

Ryan Burgess
right on. Well, I mean, you could also go on a podcast and just like, ask if anyone's listening, like, Hey, would your company like to sponsor Magnolia js?

Kayla Sween
You know, if only there was an opportunity like that around?

Ryan Burgess
Have to look for that. And I'm not sure how that's gonna happen. But hey, you know, there might

Kayla Sween
be someone out there. You never know.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, exactly. So after doing three years of, of this, planning and executing on conference, what are the biggest lessons takeaways that you have that you know, if others were to attempt this? What are things that you would share?

Kayla Sween
to Don't do it? I'm just kidding. I'm not surprised to hear you say that? Because, yeah, I'm

Ryan Burgess
sure it's one of those things that it's a big endeavor, it is, it's

Kayla Sween
huge. I would say like, Don't Don't even start to think or fathom that you can do it on your own. Because that's like, there's just so much that goes into it. And like, the first year I did it. The first year I ran it, it was virtual. And it still was like so much work. And it was just me and my husband, working on all of it. Last year, it was mostly me and my husband, you know, working our full time jobs doing the organizing on top of that, Oh, cheers years. As far as I thought that it was good catch. We got doing that on top of our full time jobs. And last year, I like, I mean, I just realized I could not do it anymore. I can't, you know, I just don't have time. There's not enough hours in the day to do as much stuff that needs to get done. Then last year, I procrastinated a lot, too. So I was like, oh, there's plenty of time to do everything. And then, you know, all of a sudden, it was like three months until the conference. So thankfully, a friend of mine who like has a marketing background, she has been like helping out a lot. Because yeah, she's she's a stay at home mom right now. And she's like, yes, please give me things to do. Because like she really, like, really wanted to help. And yeah, she, she's been, it's been a huge help, just having her like, both reaching out to people, because that's another thing is like, again, I'm weird about asking people for money, like asking people for help. And generals always hard for me. You know, something I'm going through in therapy, it's fine. I'm getting better. But yeah, having her like kind of taking charge on a lot of that, especially reaching out to local companies, because like she's very much a somebody who will repeatedly follow up and like, she'll go into businesses and be like, hey, I need to talk to whoever's in charge here. Like,

Ryan Burgess
that's amazing to have a person like that on your team. I'm very much similar to you where I'm like, I don't like asking for money. I don't really like asking for help too much, either. It's, it's hard. It's like, I'll just kind of power through it myself. Even if I'm failing and struggling, it's like, you know, just keep going.

Kayla Sween
Same. Yeah. listeners do not do what no, what we're saying we do. Please ask people for help.

Ryan Burgess
I like that. Because you know, I've never planned a conference that is always something I've thought would be, in some ways, maybe fun and entertaining. But also I know how much goes into it. That also scares me. But I have done fairly large events that I've done, whether it be just like meetups and things like that, especially at Netflix, there was a an event I was running for a while this was before the pandemic, the pandemic kind of put a wrench in that where I was like, Yeah, I don't want to try and do this remotely. But we were doing like I think it's about Quarterly. We were doing this JavaScript talks where we would either have Netflix speak mostly it was Netflix engineers speak, but oftentimes, we didn't maybe even have guests from other companies too. It was great. Like I love doing it. And that's on a small scale for you know what you had to deal with. But it's dealing with food, making sure you have that drinks, making sure there's enough drinks like there's one day I remember we running out so I was jumping in the car and driving to like Safeway to deal with that. And to the speaking to help thing. I started to get help over time, and I very much appreciated that and wish I asked for help earlier. We had an events team that was helping me in the long run. Not only were they so helpful, taking care of a lot of those things. They did 10x a better job than I did. So it was it was really great having that

Kayla Sween
it's fun. See how that works? Whatever you get people who like do that as their entire job like they're so much better at it than somebody who doesn't?

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, like even saying your friend doing the marketing side of things where you're like she goes into the business, she will straight up asked, you will follow up and keep on that. It's like, yeah, because you have to do those things. But you learn those things through failure as you're trying to dive in. I don't know how to do this don't know how to run event. Well, I'll just try it. And it's, it's not as simple as you think either.

Kayla Sween
No, it's It's certainly not I know, you mentioned like, trying to do stuff during the pandemic too. And it was like, so yeah, the first time I read it, it was virtual. And so it was like 2021, right. So like, people did not give a shit about doing virtual events anymore. Like people didn't care about like, watching them. Sponsors did not care about sponsoring them, like those kinds of things. But I was like, I was talking to Gant Laborde who is I don't remember what his title is officially at infinite red, but is one of the head guys at infinite red runs chain react in Portland? Yeah, he was like, I was I was on a call with him. And like just kind of talking about ideas and stuff. He was like, it would be a fantastic idea for you to, like, send out swag to people. Since you know, nobody cares about virtual events anymore. People don't really like, feel like they're a part of an event. When it's virtual. They just kind of feel like they're watching a YouTube playlist. Yes. Like, yeah, so he came up with the idea for like, sending swag to people. And so that was, that was why we did that. So we sent out shirts to people like I had Magnolia shirts made like it was like it was a regular conference. This dot labs sent us a bunch of swag like so we my husband, I've packaged up like 1000 sticker order or something that sticker orders but like, yes, swag things with stickers and mugs, and shirts and everything. And it was all free to the attendees. So

Ryan Burgess
that's really cool. I like that. Because it does start to try and marry the like, virtual to like the old wall. I mean, now we're back in person, which is great. But like, at that time, it was like, it just never felt like virtual events felt real. Like it's like you said, you're just watching like a YouTube channel, it's really hard to, to make it feel like a community around it, which is a big part of the whole conference scene is community.

Kayla Sween
Exactly. Yeah. And I feel like and then like, we also had virtual coffee helping us out like do I don't know if you've heard of virtual coffee, but they like they have these meetups every Tuesday and Thursday. And it's just like a way for people to get together. And I think it was started like, early on in the pandemic, just as a way for developers to talk to each other and whatever, like just so that you don't feel as isolated. And so virtual coffee helped us out. And we had like lunch tables with them to like, get people together. And they could have little groups and there were topics that they would talk about and things like that. So just little ways to get just little things like that to kind of bring people together when it seemed like it was just getting harder to I guess

Ryan Burgess
I like that though, too is like there again, you're leaning on someone who's you're like, you've been doing some of this, like what have you learned? How do we do this virtually. And so that's cool, too, that you even were able to lean on someone else who's been working and doing that.

Kayla Sween
Exactly.

Ryan Burgess
Did you I'm curious on the virtual side of things. Did you have speakers pre recorded their talks, or did they talk live?

Kayla Sween
I think we had a mix. I think a few people did pre record but some people did alive too.

Ryan Burgess
I'm still not sure what's actually no I know it's better. It's better to just do it live because the pre recorded ones I've had to do that. And you agonize over like I should retreat rerecord that. No, that wasn't good. I'm gonna do that. And it takes so much longer when really it probably would have just been okay to do it live.

Kayla Sween
So I've started doing like these little videos of like, days in the life of organizing a conference. I've seen a couple other great Yes, like a posting on Tik Tok posted him on Twitter. And I will write out a script. And I cannot tell you how many times I will do just the first bit of that script over and over and over again. And it's just like, I mean, it takes me way longer to do that than it does to probably record all the things throughout the day and actually, like stitch them together. It's just and having done one pre recorded talk. It was the same way just like agonizing over every little bit of it.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, it feels weird doing it. I did. I think it was actually during the pandemic I started doing these small like and I purposely like to be I think guys I set myself it had to be under two minutes or something. But these little manager video clips that were just giving advice. And I remember thinking at first I was like, Oh, I can just read a script. So similar to you as like, I started doing that, and realizing I would mess up and like screw up what I was trying to say. And so I ended up pretty much just dropping the script, I would still write up roughly what I wanted to say. But then just kind of read it and go, alright, just say it. And most of the times I was able to do it in one or two takes just doing that. That worked a lot better. But yeah, when you're agonizing over every word, it's so it's so hard to do. It's so

Kayla Sween
hard to do. Yeah, it's like, now it's having done I think two or three of those have started just like, I guess, having less and less notes as I go on and just kind of winging it, because like, that's, I mean, that's, that's pretty much what I do for conference talks to is like, I'll practice it and practice it. And like, though, the last one that I do it on stage is always the best one. And I'm just like saying whatever the hell comes into my mind. I'm like, rarely talking about what I did in practice.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, cuz you're, you're riding through it enough times that you have a gist of what you want to deliver. And, quite frankly, it's probably going to come across as a better talk to write like, honestly, the delivery is more casual. You're saying it what you need to say, but it's not. Yeah, it doesn't feel like you're reading off of something, which is huge. Yeah, it's not forced. That's a good way to put it. So. So we've talked about sponsors, obviously, a lot of work there and getting them and then if you don't have enough, you're like, alright, well, we've got to cut back on budgets and things like that.

Kayla Sween
I was just gonna say, yeah, and for us, it's been like, well, you know, we'll cut back some stuff. But it's like, I, to me, it's the most important thing is attendee experience, like, period, the end. And so like, last year, I mean, we paid out of pocket, my husband, I paid to run the event. Likely will this year just because, you know, everybody's laying off everybody now. And it's just, it's a hard financial situation. So, yeah, but it's like, making sure everybody has a great time is the most important thing to me. And like, making sure everybody's fed well, is also the most important thing to me. Because if you're gonna come to Mississippi, if you're gonna come to the south, then you ain't gonna leave hungry. So

Ryan Burgess
no, that's like, that's a good selling point itself right there. It's like good food.

Kayla Sween
I know, I need to post more pictures of the food because the food was incredible. Like, I don't feel like I'm tooting my own horn with that or anything because like, we, we had caterers, local caterers do it. But it was the food was awesome. I was like, as soon as we started organizing it, like having in person events. Oh, cheers. Again, cheers. But as soon as we went back in, in person, like, I knew, I was, like, I did not want to just being people like box lunches, or sandwiches, or like fast food or anything like that just like, wanted to make sure that they ate really well. Because like, I mean, if you're in the cell, like, there's tons of food around you, you can go to a gas station, and you're gonna have the best food you've ever had in your life around here. Like, it's, it's so good. And so like, I can't, I can't just feed people, whatever. Like I'm, I want to make sure that they have like, an actual southern experience. And as a southern woman, I just cannot let people go hungry. But that was related that that was something I dropped the ball on last year was, well, making sure people had coffee throughout the day. Okay, that's always important. Surveys. So, if you went to last year's event, I'm so sorry. And we will have all day this year. That's like, top priority. But the second thing was like, dietary restrictions. That was something like we had vegan food, but that was the only thing I had thought about beforehand. I didn't think about nut allergies and gluten allergies and all that and like, I was like, Oh my God, there's some things that people potentially just can't eat. And so that like, hurt me in my soul for like, you know, people people came and like, I mean, that's that's always a thing around here too, is like you go visit family or anything. It's like even if you weren't hungry and going in you, you need to be ready to eat. Yeah, I just felt felt like a bad Mississippi. And at that point,

Ryan Burgess
I love how you're reflecting on that though, too. And just saying like, it's it's those lessons you learn as you do, right? Like, there's so many little details to think about that. Something as simple as coffee can absolutely be overlooked. You maybe you're not even a coffee drinker. And I think that can happen to where you're like, I don't think people need it that bad. But then you're you know, have the conference and people are looking for their coffee. They're crashing after lunch. They're like needing that coffee. So

Kayla Sween
Oh, and especially after our lunch like people were definitely Like, how am I supposed to go on? Yes, that's a good point. Yeah. And I haven't worked in an office and for years, so like, since like, I mean, I quit my job before the the pandemic even to like, go remote again. And so like, I forgot that people do just drink coffee constantly throughout the day. Because I have about one cup in the morning. And I'm like, I don't know. Not even really because I need it anymore. Just because it's habit and like, that's just my routine. Yeah, just didn't even think about it. We did have energy drinks, but it's not the same as coffee.

Ryan Burgess
No, it's and like, that's the thing is you'll have the coffee drinkers like, Nope, don't drink energy drinks anything like coffee or, or vice versa. Like there's people who are just having their energy drink and not coffee. It's just It's funny how that goes. I have been to, I think it was like one conference, I remember where they didn't have coffee the first year, and I thought that was off and weird. And then the second year they did, but it's like, that's just what happens. Right? And I'm not a huge coffee drinker. I mean, I'm similar to you. I drink it, pretty much. No, I drink it every day, at least once. And that enough? I remember going early and being like, where's the coffee? It wasn't that big deal. I could go to like a coffee shop next door or something. But yeah, it's those little thing.

Kayla Sween
I mean, for us, it was tragic, because they're like, thankfully that is changing this year. But before like last year, there was not anything in downtown. There's not a coffee shop in downtown. Because there's I mean, there's like, there's a lot of things that just like had moved out of downtown Jackson, over the years for, we won't go into all of Mississippi's politics. A multitude of reasons. And so yeah, but thankfully, we do have a coffee shop coming in, in downtown. I think it's supposed to open maybe this month or next month. So it'll be good and fresh by the time the conference comes.

Ryan Burgess
Which is perfect, too. Because you're like, we'll have coffee for you. But there's also a coffee shop if you need to go somewhere else two

Kayla Sween
blocks away.

Ryan Burgess
That's perfect. I love that. Very cool. So we've talked about the sponsors, speakers, how do you how do you take that approach? Is it similar? Where you're hitting up people? Are you do you have a CFP? Yeah, how do you approach getting speakers to the conference? Or do you try and target having certain types of talks? Or I'd love to kind of hear more how you think about that.

Kayla Sween
So all the above? Okay. That's good. Yeah. So in previous years, I was just reaching out to people, which in hindsight, was a terrible idea, because I already don't like asking for help. And like, I know that going and like speaking is a lot of work because I've done it. It's so like, asking people to do that, for me for the conference. Like, yeah, that was probably a terrible idea. That's probably why I would put it off. Way too long. is like, it's because of that. But last year, we decided to do a CFP being you know, a and I was the only person that went to the CFPs. I like I did a final like pass with my husband. And I guess I'll also say my husband is a technical person too. So like, right, yeah, it's,

Ryan Burgess
it's good for the audience to know this, too.

Kayla Sween
Yeah, he's not just some rando. That's like going through stuff with me. Yeah, he actually has worked in the field for longer than I have. But yeah, so this year, we did a CFP did are trying to do like more, having the CFP, I guess, gave us the ability to have more variety talks. Because before I would just invite people and I'd be like, I don't care, whatever the hell you want to talk about, just talk about it. Like, I trust you. Because I know you've spoken at conferences before and I'm, you know, whatever. And a couple of times, I would invite somebody that was a new speaker, and just because I knew them, but I wanted to like, open it up, give more people a chance this year, so did a CFP. We had like 300 submissions, which was insane. Yeah, so I went through a lot of them. Unfortunately, we had to, like go through and kind of weed people out based on if they needed travel cover just because we knew we knew how, like all the layoffs have gone throughout 2023 That like, we just we're not gonna be able to do that this year. Yeah, went through that. Like, we had to tell so many people know is like so many people had such amazing talks. No, it was it's like, it's heartbreaking. And I'm hoping that those people will like reapply next year because like, yeah, having a CFP was like it just made my life a lot easier. I didn't have to hound speakers for information. I didn't have to try to get their headshots. I didn't have to try to get talk titles or details or whatever. And it's like, if they decided they wanted to change their talk later, that's fine. You know, just that they they come to me and let me know, right? I don't have to go chase that information down from them.

Ryan Burgess
It's not the polling like where you're like I need to talk Title unknown is not going to fly. You know, two days before the conference, please give me a talk title or at least your like, you want that change? Tell me I will do that.

Kayla Sween
Exactly. So doing the CFP was great there. I mean, there are people I still asked to speak, or like, I would just have a conversation with and I'd be like, Okay, here's the link, like, if you really do want to speak then like, you know, just because we use session eyes and like almost every speaker already has stuff on session eyes. So you know, if you do want to speak, just go ahead. And you know, stick your talk in there, whatever. And we'll we'll get you in.

Ryan Burgess
That's really cool. How many speakers will you have this year, we had,

Kayla Sween
we've had to drop out so far, which is expected you always have some I unfortunately expect this year to be a bit more because of layoffs. We actually just had one like yesterday that dropped out because layoffs. So that company wasn't gonna be able to pay for it anymore. So now we have 22, I think, which is still a lot but we overbooked because we last year, we very much under booked I guess, speakers, and I think we had four or five drop out mostly in the last week before the event. So that was a little stressful. But I was like, you know, what, then just means people have more breaks and more opportunity to talk to other people, it's not a big deal. Because I like to have a lot of breaks into that way. It's just not things don't feel as rushed, I guess. And like, if you need to get up, go to the bathroom, or get a drink or get a snack or whatever, like you got time to do that between talks. And you're not. Okay, let me hurry up and go do all this stuff before I come back, you know, because the next talk is starting immediately after the one before it and or I can't go talk to the sponsors who have booths set up and are giving out swag because there's no time to like those kinds of things. I just like to bake and a lot of time for people to go do all that stuff.

Ryan Burgess
I actually really appreciate that too at conferences, as much as I really love the talks like that is absolutely, you know, great seeing people speak on whatever topic it is. One of my favorite things is likely the networking piece of it to where you're just like that hallway track where you're having that time to just meet and talk with people. I mean, that's how you and I met was Lido in between talks at at render Atlanta. And those are, I think some of the best times to do that you can relate to a talk that you maybe just saw have a conversation around it. And so I think that's good. And it does give people that break. It's it's hard to when you're sitting back to back to back to back talks, even if they're just small breaks in between, it's, it's hard to digest that all too.

Kayla Sween
Exactly. And like the talks are super important. Because it's like, you know, you get exposed to new ideas and whatever. But I feel like the biggest part of going to a conference because like, especially nowadays, like most talks are recorded. That's true.

Ryan Burgess
You can always catch it later, which I don't know how much people do I always wonder like, how many people actually go see them after

Kayla Sween
I feel like I like I think it render in particular this year, I went to two or three talks total across both days. And so I wouldn't like I think they just posted Yeah, they did. Yeah. So I'm gonna go back and watch them. Now there are a few that I wanted to like that I did actually catch, they don't wanted to send other people. But given that all the talks are like recorded, they will be for Magnolia to in you also go to our YouTube channel and see previous years. But I feel like the most important thing when you are in person is like talking to other people. Because it's like, I mean, that's why I'm doing this is like to allow local developers and like, even developers beyond the local area to network with other people and like, especially and that's why we wanted to keep it really small, because it's way easier to network when there aren't 3000 people around. It's easier to like, actually have meaningful conversations, I guess. So like, yeah, Magnolia is never gonna be one of these, like, 1000s of attendee conferences, just because that's not, I don't see the value in it as much. And so, I mean, if we were just like, having people just forcing them to, you know, go to talks, and that was it. Maybe I would, but I just don't see the point in it. Yeah, having those meaningful conversations. Like I mean, I know one person that got a job from Magnolia last year. That's cool.

Ryan Burgess
I love yeah,

Kayla Sween
I've definitely gotten jobs from like speaking at conferences from going to conferences, meeting people at conferences. So I mean, it's, that's it's so important to do that because like, those are the kinds of things that will actually change people's lives. Yeah, is like, especially in this area, like wages in Mississippi are like traditionally really depressed and so like getting people talking to other companies out of state being able to work remote like getting paid like actual Take money. I guess that's I mean, that's why I do this.

Ryan Burgess
So many companies are hiring remote and so that it's like, you don't have to necessarily move to go get that salary, which is amazing. Like you. I very much appreciate the conferences for just being able to talk with people and meet people. I mean, I've hired many people from because of going to conferences. But even Yeah, just the networking, I have probably laundry list of things where I'm like, yeah, if it wasn't for that conference, I wouldn't have met this person, we wouldn't have been able to do X, Y, and Z. And you just don't really know. And I think that's the cool thing I love. We didn't really even touch on like your motivations for it. But for me, that's something that resonated with me, you saying that, that it's like, it's almost building that community and really, you know, pulling people together, I enjoy that factor. And then even when you get the hearing, like, oh, so and so got a job because of that, or these two met and did something because of that conference. It's all those things pulling people together. It's so meaningful in that sense.

Kayla Sween
Oh, my gosh, yeah. And like, it just absolutely warms my heart to hear stuff like that. And like, I mean, I've even met some of like, some really incredible people that I've like, become friends with and like, unfortunately, I mostly only see them at conferences. But But yeah, it's like, I mean, just some of the some of the best people I've ever met in my life. I've met at conferences. And it's like, if I hadn't started going to conferences, if I hadn't started speaking at conferences or whatever, like, I never would have I never would have met any of these.

Ryan Burgess
No, I echo those same feelings. I think I've even met. I know there's been many times actually, I've met a lot of Netflix engineers at conferences. I'm like, this is weird. Cool. We're meeting for the first time. It's happened like quite a few times. So it's like, it is cool. It's like there's something about the conference bringing people together. So I love that you're dedicating that time and effort to do that. I also we didn't go deep on the you keeping it small, but I love the smaller conferences, too. I think you feel more of that community. You know, we you and I are both at render Atlanta, which was completely different than that. I really enjoyed the conference. And was that your first year? That was my first year actually at render Atlanta.

Kayla Sween
Yeah, that last this year was like very different from previous years. I've been every year, because Justin Samuels. He was the he was the speaker with me at the first magnolia. And also we went to the same college. So oh my god,

Ryan Burgess
that's so cool. And of course, just the organizer of render ATL tickets

Kayla Sween
are on sale now for that, too. So you should absolutely give.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, that's the thing is like, I almost like hearing you talk about your like, it's like a good six months, maybe a year out. I'm like, Yeah, you're basically throwing the event, and then turning around and planning for the next year. And I saw Justin doing that we're even talking to some of us who are speakers, you're interested in speaking again next year, and it's like, you're not done this year. But it's like, yeah, you got to start talking. Now. Exactly.

Kayla Sween
Well, yeah. And it's like, especially for higher profile speakers. It's like, unless they are just really interested in coming to speak, then you have to get them on the books early. Because like they they're they're gonna go ahead and get stuff scheduled out like a year in advance, whatever. So yeah, just if you want somebody to speak very badly, then you need to get them on on the schedule. B. I got lucky. Yeah, we got a couple of like, I guess higher profile people that submitted to the CFP and also to Andy Jones is speaking this year, and like she just happen to be talking to somebody about Magnolia on Twitter. I know it was like, Hey, do you want to do you want to come because she's close. She's just in New Orleans. And that's like a two and a half hour drive away?

Ryan Burgess
Which is perfect. Yeah. And I met and you add run your there's another person? Yeah, exactly. That's cool. I love that you've shared some reflections. And you know, before we dive into pics, like I would love you know what some like blasting advice that you would give some of our listeners who are like, I'm gonna run an event, maybe it's not a full blown conference, maybe it's just a meet up or things like that. I think it's a great thing to do you learn a lot from him. But yeah, what can ease their way into it? Maybe like help them not make the same mistakes that you've had to maybe go through?

Kayla Sween
Well, first thing I would definitely say is because I've heard some people saying that when they want to organize an event, they've never actually been to a

Ryan Burgess
conference. So yeah, first attend one. That's a good call to go to a conference

Kayla Sween
first for sure. I would recommend going to one that smaller just so that you can kind of see more, I guess. Like I think it's more obvious the things that are happening when you're at a smaller conference, like the pieces that go into it are a little bit more clear, rather than when you're at like someplace like render where it's it's a production, right. So it's harder to kind of see those moving pieces. That would probably be my first thing. My second thing would be, have people help you. Like, work with other people. We'll either locally or not, like, find, find a team of people to help you work on the event that is still something I struggle with. It's still something I like constantly talking about how I need to do is like tap on More people locally to help me run this one. And like, yeah, if I've got a job next year before the next Magnolia, that's definitely something I'm gonna have to do. But, yeah, I think those are the two biggest things is just like trying to pay attention, maybe even try to like volunteer rather than event, that would probably be a good thing too, is if you could volunteer to help out with an event, see if see if that's something you would be interested in, because you'll kind of get more. I mean, granted, it'll probably be like just the day of and of the event kind of stuff. But you'll have a little bit more insight as to what goes on with actually running the event that day.

Ryan Burgess
I mean, running the event. And the day is like that, in itself is such an experience that maybe I'll even speak to things that I've learned over doing various events is like even something that you'd mentioned that I'll highlight is have backup plans, like it's always good to kind of have, maybe it's a panel discussion that you can pull together. If a speaker doesn't show up, or technical difficulties, try and iron those out as early as possible. You know, all those little things that can just happen. It's like be prepared. Just think of the worst thing that can happen and how are you going to handle it, go in ahead of that. And thinking through those can go a long way. I think another thing I would say is lean on others, like you'd mentioned to help but also lean on others who've done this right. People will share advice, you're sharing a lot of amazing advice on this podcast, people are open to sharing, like how to do these things or things that they've learned. So I think just reaching out to people who've done that, and getting their advice can go a long way to so those things and then you're gonna make mistakes. That's okay. You'll learn from them.

Kayla Sween
You will make this I mean, it's just like, it's just like everything. I mean, you're not a senior until you've broken production. So you taking down production, right? So like, it's, it's just those kinds of things. You're, you're not gonna be a great conference organizer, unless you mess some stuff up. I do have a story about planning for things, too, because it's like so this we're in Jackson, Mississippi, two weeks before the event last year, Jackson's water made national news of just like, Well, I mean, I have a lot of people asking if we even had water here. Yeah, we got we had water.

Ryan Burgess
So what happened that there was an issue with the water or

Kayla Sween
so there's, there's been decades of issues with the water. So that was like, Yeah, that was a weird thing to have to explain to people that this wasn't a new thing. And I don't think it made anybody feel any better. Like whatever they would ask me if it was okay to come to the events like, Well, I mean, it's just as okay now as it was before. But yeah, so we had a lot of flooding in the area two to two weeks before the event. So the local reservoir, I believe was like flooded a water treatment plant. So yeah, a lot of like Jackson had water issues. Some of them lost presh pressure. I think some areas of Jackson lost water completely, but I don't I don't know how widespread that was. It wasn't as many people as it sounded like, on the news. No, nobody I knew lost water. Also the the venues that we use never lost water pressure at all. So like the hotel, the Museum of Art, which is where we're, we hosted the event last year in Oregon this year, the after party venue, none of them lost water. But that was something that we had already planned for. We'd already planned for water issues in Jackson, because like, unfortunately, that's just the part of it. So we ordered a pallet of water to do my house. So that was that was cool. Getting that having an 18 Wheeler driving through my neighborhood dropping all the pallet of water. And yeah, we we knew we weren't gonna use all of it. Because it's just like, I think we had, we had less than 100 attendees last year, which is another story, I think, having COVID restrictions in 2022. Like I was taught, we required masks and testing last year, but yeah, we knew we weren't gonna get through all that water. So we had already planned to like donate whatever was leftover so we took it around to the nonprofits in the area to get it dropped off in distribution. Hubs, I guess and just planning for things like that and making sure people have water is Yeah,

Ryan Burgess
okay. There's another lesson is but even just the being flexible, you know, thinking through, okay, how am I going to deal with this and everything so you might be out of water that could very well happen, so prepare quickly. Exactly. All right. Well, it's probably a good time for us to dive into pics. In each episode of the front end, Happy Hour podcast. We like to share things with our listeners of things that we find interesting could be relevant to the topic maybe not doesn't matter. Kayla, what do you have to share with our listeners?

Kayla Sween
So my first pick ache is Magnolia Jas obviously, that I've also got a discount code to Oh, nice. Yeah. So if you're listening in, you can get another 10% off. So it's already $200, which is probably the cheapest conference you'd ever go to anyway. And then 10% off of that. So that's Brunnen H H dash in awesome. Get 10% off. Yeah, by second pick, I had a lot of things that I was just like trying to clean up. I love it. So many things. I'll just list them all. It's fine. So none of them. None of the other ones are related to take really. But Google's I don't know if you've ever tried Google's, but they're incredible. So I'm a child. I love mac and cheese. And so Google's are like protein, mac and cheese. Oh, that's actually pretty cool. Yeah, there's a bond. There's bonza, too, but that one is not as good but the Google's amazing. They have a hatch chili One, two. Fantastic buy. Next big is probably fall is Fallout 76. I've been having a lot of fun playing that. I know a lot of people like stop playing. I don't know if you're a gamer. But

Ryan Burgess
I don't play as much video games. Now, as you know, having small children is taken too much time. But it's more of an excuse. But it's also like, you just Yeah, I haven't prioritized that. I think that's a better way to put it.

Kayla Sween
Exactly. But yeah, if you've tried Fallout 76 when it came out, and you were like, wow, this really sucks. It doesn't suck anymore. So yeah, if they fixed it, and it's actually fun now, and my last pick will be superhuman, which is an email client, it's been saving my life. Just like reminding me to follow up on emails. It's just so nice. Having like that Inbox Zero picture. I feel like it's just in general, less overwhelming than just seeing a ton of even read emails all the time. I was skeptical, whatever, people were talking about it on Twitter, and I was like, $30 of mine. I don't know that. That is pretty

Ryan Burgess
steep. But if it's like steep if it's bringing you like that reducing that anxiety, I mean, could be worth being converted.

Kayla Sween
I'm a believer now. Wow. Yeah, highly recommended. They have a yearly plan to it. It'll make it cheaper.

Ryan Burgess
I like that. That's good pick. I just have one pick which is a snack. So it's a kind of going to be in like a kid because it reminds me of one of my favorite snacks as a kid my wife bought a tub of these and I was like, Man, these are great again, but they're like Bala jumbo sour soccers they're like the sour soothers jumbo things. I don't know. I ate them a lot as a kid and Damn, they're still good as an adult.

Kayla Sween
I don't think I've ever seen those.

Ryan Burgess
I also feel like I don't see them much. In least in California. I'm not I'm but I don't think I see them in the US much. I grew up in Canada. I definitely saw them a lot more in like seven elevens and various like stores like that. And so it's funny like I don't see them regularly. And so she had just randomly had ordered them for me. Probably super unhealthy. Not good for you, but delicious.

Kayla Sween
I mean, if it makes you're like, if it brought me joy, if it brings you joy that it's worth it. It's totally Exactly.

Ryan Burgess
Exactly. Well, Kayla, it was awesome having you on like so great to kind of hear your experience. And I mean, good luck with Magnolia Jas this year. I know it's coming up. It will come up before you know it. So I'm happy to hear you're planning your way into that. Where can people get in touch with you?

Kayla Sween
Oh, you can find me at underscore Kayla Sween at on Twitter. I'm on blue sky. I'm on like all the Twitter knock offs. Like I'm on blue sky at Kayla dot o o on threads at Kayla sunrise, and that's also my instagram handle. If you go to my Instagram, it'll just be a lot of like, old powerlifting videos. But yeah, thanks. Thank you for having me. You know, longtime listener first time caller. So I love

Ryan Burgess
that. That's even better. When you've like listened to the podcast, you're like alright, now I'm joining. That's great. Yeah, thank you all for listening to our episode. Hopefully you learned a lot about conferences behind the scenes. You can follow us on Twitter at front end H H, and really subscribe to us on whatever you like to listen to podcasts on. Kayla, any last words

Kayla Sween
just I also forgot to mention Magnolia jas.com The whole you know, the whole reason why we were talking. So yeah, you'll be able to find the links to the tickets there. So you can use your discount code.

Ryan Burgess
What was the discount code just in case people forgot

Kayla Sween
front end H H dash 10. Other than that organizing

Ryan Burgess
cheers.

Kayla Sween
Cheers.