All About the Page Builder Summit With Anchen and Nathan  ## Metadata - Author: [[Do the Woo Media Channel]] - Full Title: All About the Page Builder Summit With Anchen and Nathan - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/c943a61d-ab5c-4590-8a94-327662520d23 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Origins Tied to COVID Lockdown** - The Page Builder Summit began from Anshan's general WordPress summit and Nathan's idea focused on page builders. - It serendipitously launched during COVID lockdown, boosting its success as people sought online events. Transcript: Speaker 2 Evolve? Speaker 3 So I, in 2019, I think, the end of 2019, I wanted to do a summit, or I did a summit, but it was more WordPress, general WordPress. And my whole idea with that was just at that stage, well, it still is. There's a lot of people from South Africa and from Africa, and struggle to get to WordPress, and struggle to get the same access to. And at that point, there wasn't a lot of summits on the topic of WordPress. So I did the general WordPress and Nathan, and I met at WordPress camp that year, and I think we've talked a little bit about that. And he said, he has this idea around a summit that is focused solely on Page Builder. So I think, and that's how it starts. I think Nathan maybe tell us more about where it went from there. Speaker 1 Yeah, so Anshana had obviously done this already, and being the leech that I am, I decided to use her expertise. So yeah, so we basically hit on this idea of doing a summit all about Page Builders. It probably should say at the outset that it really, the title is somewhat constraining. It kind of hits the mark, but it also misses out a little bit. So for example, if you're using the block editor, kind of firmly comes under the purview of what we do, but also there's a lot of content about things just outside of designing web pages. There's lots of content about, I don't know, marketing and just design in general. We've had a lot of experts on in those areas. And then last year we even had a talk about email deliverability and making sure those things hit the inbox, not get sent to spam. So the title itself may be slightly misleading, but yeah, so we put the first event on. It was, I think it was a big success actually from both of our points of view. I think we had a nice audience that engaged and wanted us to carry on. And so I think at the end of the first one, we sort of asked the question, should we do another one? I don't know if we really had any expectation that we do a second one. And then the cadence has been every year, every six months, something like that. We put another ([Time 0:03:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3de787e9-36d4-4282-97f5-62a07f56439b)) - **Manage Summit With Structure** - Planning an online summit requires managing hundreds of tasks from speaker management to sponsorships. - Pre-record talks to ensure quality and reduce live event risks. Transcript: Speaker 2 That. I love the entire process, because probably they want to cover every piece, but some of the stuff it actually takes to do in an event like this, that people maybe don't really think about. Speaker 3 Okay. So firstly, of course, speaker management. It's like always one of the, the, well, it's the most rewarding because I just love reaching out to the speakers and connecting with them. But obviously, hard is worked like just getting everything ready and deciding route to invite and everything. We, we don't have an open call for speakers. We actually invite speakers just because we, just for a lot of reasons diversity being one of them. So yeah, so then just getting everything in from speaker side and they are setting everything up. Like it's a, we have a custom post type per speaker so just loading all the data, chroma material, just yeah, what else Nathan, what am I not thinking about? Speaker 1 Well, I mean, there, there is a lot. What I would say is if you are even thinking about doing an online summit, just, I think if you want to do it well, just be prepared that there is a lot more to it. Like I said earlier, sort of jokingly, Anshan had done all this before and he's actually, you know, one of her main lines of work is to help other people do this. And so she's not just on it throughout the summit. She's done it for countless other summits. And I was really amazed actually how many different pieces to this jigsaw puzzle there are. So Anshans mentioned the massive game of email tennis that you get into when you're trying to invite the speakers because that's a whole process. You know, just imagine 40 plus speakers and you've got countless emails going backwards and forwards. This is all Anshan, by the way, I'm not a part of all that. But that in itself is one thing. And then there's all the media to be created around it. So the advertising, the promo bits and pieces, all of the speakers bring something to offer to the table because we have this thing called the Powerpack, which is like an upsell and the Speakers throw their bits and pieces into that. So that's one big bundle. You can buy it prior to the summit and actually during the summit as well. So there's all of that to be organized. And obviously there's the website to be created to house that choices about which video platform you're going to use, how you're going to get the chat on the screen, organizing so that The speakers know to show up at the right time. We actually pre-record everything. The theory there is that if it's pre-recorded, you get the best version of their 30, 40 minutes, as opposed to the live possibility, which is great. But also I think sometimes it's easy to run out of time or get derailed and go off in the wrong direction and realize suddenly 40 minutes in, you've still got 30 minutes of content to say And you can no longer do it. So we pre-record everything and then we ask the speakers to drop into the live chat for the first hour that it's available. We make all the content freely available so it's a completely free event to attend. But there is some sort of gate there in that we make it freely available for 48 hours. And during that 48 hours for the first hour, the speaker shows up and so you can get questions answered if you've got anything around that. And then have I mentioned this already? The sponsorship piece as well where you've got to both Bob and Anshana straining their faces at the moment. So pitch this. The sponsorship piece is another part of the puzzle. It's a bit like the speaker puzzle in that you reach out to lots and lots of different people and some come back and say, yeah, we'd like to sponsor that event and we have a roster of things That we offer for various different packages. So long in the short is there's a lot and Anshana does pretty much all of it. Speaker 2 So the pre-recording obviously is also a nice safeguard against internet outages or low bandwidth or other technical things that you really have no control over except to just swear At them or make faces at them. Speaker 1 So that makes total sense. Yeah, we've used Vimeo as the platform to host a video but we're having a bit of a change this time around, aren't we Anshana? We just decided to try something different. It's basically the same experience that you show up, hit play. Unless everybody showed up at the same time, it would be really hard to get your questions answered because you might have six people at three minutes and 22 people at eight minutes. And so the questions coming in might not match up. But for reasons that I can't quite explain, that all just works out. Somehow everybody seems to be able to ask a question which is answerable. So it's not a problem. Speaker 2 Now, aside from sponsorships. Speaker 1 Oh, thanks, Moll. Thanks for mentioning that. Yeah. Speaker 2 Really of everything you mentioned or maybe something you didn't mention, what's the biggest challenge of doing this thing? Speaker 3 I can't believe we really think it's just, it's not really a challenge. It's just a lot of work that goes into it. Like Nathan mentioned, like the project management task, the task list has got almost 400 tasks on just to give you an idea. So but it's, yeah, especially at this point, we don't, it's not really, ([Time 0:08:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a0298210-bbdb-4c94-960b-9ca6e7e60644)) - **Summit Audience Extends Beyond Builders** - Although named for page builders, the summit covers wider web design topics relevant to the page builder audience. - This blend makes it valuable to users of blocks and other tools beyond just page builders. Transcript: Speaker 2 And on and on and on and whatever is to come. It sounds like, well, page builders aren't going away, obviously. You must have a little bit of an opinion of that. But also you have enough pieces in that that almost becomes, like you said, not just a page builder, somebody becomes a web business summit or something else because you're touching On so many elements that aren't just specifically about using a page builder. Talk about email and stuff like that. Was that an effort you thought about making because of the direction of WordPress or was that just something that naturally and organically happened that, yeah, there's all these Other things around them, whether you're using a page builder or not, that people really need to know about. You can't just have a summit about page builders. I mean, literally just that. Speaker 1 Yeah, I think the first event that we did, because it was new and we were looking for speakers, just really primarily around page builders, that first event really was largely about That. And then when the second one came around, I was kind of thinking that it would have to be the same kind of content again, but Anshan was able to convince me that it's fine to have those different Threads of content underneath the same banner. So it's definitely, if you're not a fan of a particular page builder, let's say, I don't know, you may be an elemental user or something like that, there's going to be some content about That page builder. There's going to be some content about how to work with blocks in a particular scenario, but there's also be lots and lots of content which isn't related to a particular page builder. We have all sorts of experts on all sorts of other areas. And we publish the schedule a long time prior to the event actually coming up. So when that page is live, you'll be able to see day by day what's on and add it to your calendars and things like that. So you'll be able to pick and choose. I think possibly that's the best way to do it. We do have actually a couple of, well, I'll say a couple, several people who seem to attend all of it. And I kind of think, wow, that's pretty amazing. It's almost like they've just blocked a book to help their week to attend the summit. But I think the majority of the people, they hop on days when they're available or hours when they're available or talks that they think are going to be aligned well with them or what have You. And then we have this, like I said, the upsell, this power pack thing, which enables people to sort of download that content and keep it forever so they don't need to attend anything live. They can watch it weeks and weeks after the fact. And Anshan makes that available inside and like an LMS. So it's a bit like a course that you can go through and tick off the different things that you've achieved and see the bits that you missed out and so on. So yeah, it's not just about page builders, even though the name would suggest it. It's curious, isn't it? I wonder, given the time again, if we would have a different name for it because it kind of does feel a bit like it's only page builders, whereas some of the other summits in our space, they Have a more broad title and it maybe feels like it captures more. But ([Time 0:16:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5fb8f363-368d-4afa-8155-74ef452c6b73)) - **Social Bingo Boosts Engagement** - The summit creates a lively social experience with a Facebook group and interactive bingo with prizes. - Speakers generously donate prizes, fostering participant engagement and fun. Transcript: Speaker 3 Audience. Speaker 1 We have quite a nice social scene, shall we say, during the week of the summit. We have a Facebook group. I forget the number of members, but basically we silo the Facebook group. So it kind of goes into this hibernation state between summits. So you can't join it until just prior to the summit. But it's there. You can see that it exists. And then we open that up. And then there's a lot of conversation going on in there. We have help from somebody called Sunita, who's incredibly good, keeping that group active and posting interesting questions, which get quite a lot of response. And people get stuck into the questions that she poses. And then during the event, we use that to post live events. Anshan and I hop on the camera and sort of explain what's going on each day, that kind of thing. But also it's a social space and a place where you can play bingo. And I think that is singularly the reason to show up to the page builder summit. So you can download your free bingo card. And if you fill it up, points mean prizes. Speaker 2 Now I want to know, do you have a little sound effect of the thing spinning? And then Nathan's little voice comes out. Be 12. Speaker 1 No, no. So the card that you download is like a grid. I think is it five by five? I think. Yes, I think it's five by five. Twenty five different squares. And so rather than it being a number, the thing the square might say, for example, turned up to an online alive event. So you can tick that one and then watched an event on Monday, might be one. I can't actually remember what's on there, but they're all those kind of things. And so it's a bit of fun. And then in the Facebook group, we get people just uploading their picture of their card with, you know, they're going to something and cross out the ones that they've completed. And yeah, it's great. And a lot of the lot of the speakers donate their materials. That could be a prize or we give away swag, like t-shirts and things like that. It's just a bit of fun, isn't it? Speaker 3 We always have such generous speakers. They really go out all out on the being oppressed because it's only for one person. So it's usually from the speaker side, it's like something big, like really valuable. And we usually have enough prizes to give everyone that participates. So I don't think we've ever had that where I, you know, there wasn't a prize for someone on Sunday. We have like some of the regulars or like the full that's been to every summit. They actually hold out on like they choose whatever prize they want and then they wait for that day. Like the second I post that post they say there. So yeah, it's a lot of fun. Yeah. Speaker 1 I mean, you're not going to win a Bentley. But you know, ([Time 0:21:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/aa662eb9-92fa-4460-a5e6-b8c6388d398b)) - **Access Summit Content Flexibly** - All live sessions are free for 48 hours; after that, access requires purchasing the reasonably priced Powerpack. - The Powerpack grants indefinite access to all recordings and speaker bonuses for continued learning. Transcript: Speaker 1 Up to the event. So yeah, I think I probably read about six of those out. So there's another 27 or so to go and they really do run the gamut of more or less everything WordPress. We have a few speakers. We call them vault speakers. So we have a few popular presentations from previous summits. We throw those in now they're available during the whole summit. So rather than being available for this 48 hour window, they're available from the moment the summit begins on Monday, uh, Monday the 18th, um, uh, of September so that they all become Available then and they keep going right until the end. Uh, I keep talking about this 48 hour thing. I should explain what that is. It more detail anyway. Um, so yeah, they've all got their allotted time. So let's say one of them begins at 2 p.m. UK time on the Wednesday. We start the clock. So two days, exactly two days after that. So 40 hours that will become unavailable, uh, for free on the website. And we have this honestly, ([Time 0:29:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c2984ef2-9666-452f-930a-e16a2353900b)) - **Sponsorship Reaches Target Audience** - Sponsors can reach a highly engaged WordPress and page builder audience by supporting the summit. - Interested sponsors should visit the summit's sponsor page for package details and exposure. Transcript: Speaker 2 Well, what should we do with this? At least give some direction again to. Speaker 1 I am glad you mentioned that. I hadn't occurred to me to talk about the sponsors. That's brilliant. So yeah, if you're interested in sponsoring the event, I guess that the headline is basically, we have a, it is very well attended. Um, we do have many, many thousands of people who show up and subscribe to the email list. So that's one thing to say. And we have a sponsorship page. If you go to page, build a summit. Summit.com forward slash sponsor. Is it sponsor or sponsors? Speaker 3 I think it's with that. It's one of those two. Speaker 1 Um, I think you just check in. Um, anyway, if you go there, there's a whole laundry list of the different levels that we've got plus the, um, the different packages that and what you can expect in return for a donation. Often it's, you know, we're, we're putting you in front of that WordPress audience and you're associating yourself with a, with a, with a nice work. WordPressy event. Um, and then if you want to, if you want to be a part of the summit as an attendee, always just go to page, build a summit.com and whatever you need to do at that point is probably going to be Displayed there because we, we update the status of that page to reflect what's happening. Right now. So it may be signed up to the email and then much closer to the event, it might send you somewhere else. But yeah, page, build a summit. Dot com. What was it? And she was it sponsor or sponsors? Speaker 3 It was sponsors with a set of page, what was on the top. So we do have the speakers and some of the topics already on the whiteness page as well. So you can get an idea of what's going to be on. Excellent. Speaker 2 All right. Well, I appreciate you ([Time 0:33:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6b8b72be-9e57-40ea-97c2-77617b174504))