The problem: A lack of experience for freelance staff in virtual events

The proposal: Create our own event

The solution: WWM21, an online experience with a production staff of 150 volunteers, three XR studios and a budget of £0

As lockdown moved past novelty, through denial and into the realms of acceptance, many freelancers found that they were not being accepted for jobs on virtual events due to lack of experience.  The LEFS Facebook group decided to try to do something about this - with all our combined skills across the 3,000 members surely we could conceive, create and deliver an event that would allow us to qualify as experienced in this new field.

Nas put out a call for format suggestions, and my concept of a celebration of who we are as freelancers was selected.

With a small steering committee providing oversight, we appointed eight executive producers to select their teams, fine tune their subject matter and deliver the final live or recorded content.

The original ambition was to involve as many people as possible and reach an audience of maybe 200 online viewers. The final tally was 150 people involved in the production, over 1000 attendees registered, 700 logged in live and over 1100 subsequent views.

The event can be viewed here