Speaking at #WebWeWantFest

Yesterday I took a trip down to London to speak at Web We Want Festival, which I spoke about in a post earlier in the…

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web we want 2015

Yesterday I took a trip down to London to speak at Web We Want Festival, which I spoke about in a post earlier in the week.

I’m writing this on the 3 hour train journey back to Leeds and thought it would be a great opportunity to give you a bit of a re-cap about how the day went.

Train doom.

My train left Leeds at 7:38am, so I got there in plenty of time and got myself seated on my pre-booked seat.

Another girl came on and asked me if this train was going to London and I said yes.

The train set off and after a few minutes she came back and asked me if the train was direct as it had stopped and she had an interview at 11. I told her the train got into London at 9:50 and she said good. Then another passenger spoke up and said it didn’t, this train got into London at 11:30.

Apparently there were two trains from Leeds at the same time and we both got on the wrong one.

A man, who was a self-proclaimed train enthusiast, told us that we could get off in Sheffield and get a different train that would get us into London at 10:30.

So we ended up switching trains. I was pretty happy because this train had power plugs and my laptop was running on about 15%.

Chuffed until CONDUCTOR DOOM.

I was pretty sure that my train on the way back was a Virgin train and on the way there was an East Midland train. Wrong.

As I was on the wrong train, the conductor made me pay £16 for a change of route. I even tried to do my doe eyed please-feel-sorry-for-me look but she didn’t fall for it. Dick.

When we got to London, we decided which tubes to go on and separated. I hope she got to her destination okay.

After jumping on a few tubes and trying to act like I knew what I was doing, I got to the Southbank Centre and went to the Artists desk to sign in and get my wrist band.

It was around 11:30 and I didn’t have to be at the room our panel was in until 1. So I decided to get myself some dutch courage and ordered a white wine and a packet of crisps.

After that, I went for a wander and Sarah found me. She was with Angela who was new to me but wonderful.

We wandered around a bit and then went to our panel room.

Here I found the highlight of my day.

THE LIFT SANG. I CAN’T EVEN. LIKE, TOTALLY. SYKE. LOL. Okay.

It was my favourite thing.

If you want to hear the lift of amazement, then see my instagram.

After getting over the lift excitement, we entered the room.

The panel.

To be honest, I was pretty scared. I’ve never done a talk about blogging and it was scary to think that there were people looking at me for advice.

The other panelists were fantastic and such a wealth of information.

Samantha works within marketing and was able to offer a perspective from a PR’s point of view, but as a blogger she had an understanding of that side, too. Hayley is a full time blogger and had great advice about how to keep integrity with making money from your blog, amongst other things. She also has a fish that does tricks. Evan is a YouTuber so was able to offer any insight across that platform. Sarah did a great job at chairing the panel and leading the conversation so it was natural and not awkward.

After the panel, I went back to the foyer and got another glass of wine.

Then went back up to watch the second and third panel to do with blogging.

I learnt some interesting things during the talks that I either hadn’t thought about or didn’t know before:

  • Replying back to a PR asking for their budget after being approached is a massive turn off for PRs and could ruin your chances of being contacted again in the future.
  • Re-branding your blog can actually cause an increase in stats if you make it a talking point and create some fuss around it.
  • The way you act on social media can have an impact on how PRs/brands view you.

After the talks were done, there was a blog event on which I had been invited to. I wasn’t originally going to go due to having to get the train back, but I went for 30 mins or so and it was pretty fun!

It was the SNOG frozen yoghurt bus on South Bank, I felt a bit bad about having to leave half way through to catch my train back to Leeds!

Which is where we are now.

I had a really good day. I was petrified of making a totally fool of myself and I think I managed to only do it a little tiny bit! It was fun to meet some other bloggers and see the other talks.

I’ll leave you now with the photos! Enjoy your Sunday 🙂

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23 comments

  1. Ooh well done you! I need to get myself to the South Bank Centre pronto and experience the lift!

    Liz x

  2. Only you could have that kind of drama on the train!

    I remember my mum was helping someone onto a London train she had no intention or getting on – she ended up sitting and having a chat thinking the train wasn’t departing for a while – so of course, the doors shut and she was stuck on a train to London that only made ONE stop! Luckily that one stop wasn’t too far from where we lived but we still laugh about it now!

    Sounds like the conference went great and what’s not to love about singing lifts? I’d have gone up and down a few times for that alone hehe!

    Sarah 🙂

  3. You all did such a brilliant job illustrating the incredible variety of paths into and styles of blogging + really eloquently highlighted the similarities of awareness. Thank you so much, thoroughly enjoyed it. x

  4. The day may not have started out the best but it sounds like you had a great rest of the day. I bet your Q&A was really interesting sad I missed it Lucy x

  5. Bit of a nightmare for the train but you got there in the end. I didn’t know about a singing lift at the Southbank, will have to check that out! Sounds like your talk went really well

  6. Wow it’s good thing the train snafu worked out. Sounds like everything went great with the actual event. So cool seeing those old school computers in your pics.

  7. That sounds like a fantastic event and wow to all the old computers! i would have love to see and touch all.

    Shireen | Reflection of Sanity

  8. OMG That lift sounds amazing! Haha! Distracted… I would of loved to hear your amazing tips in your talk. Congratulations for being involved 🙂
    Victoria xx thedaisyjaynes.com

  9. I bet you were so nervous! Well done on smashing it, future career as a blog speaker perhaps?

    Dannie x

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