Web Summit from the perspective of UX Designer

What is Web Summit?

Web Summit is a conference held once a year in Lisbon, Portugal. It gathers representatives of more than 170 countries, all involved in internet technology and business related to it.

First editions took place in Dublin, Ireland, the hometown of the company organising these events. This year’s summit, however, was the third one held in Lisbon, which will stay the host till 2028, spending 11 mln EUR yearly on this event. As the venue is expected to grow during the next decade, Portuguese authorities are obliged to double the size of the main arena in the exhibition centre (current capacity is 20 000 people).

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Centre Stage has kicked off here on the first day of talks at Web Summit 🙌

A post shared by Web Summit (@websummit) on Nov 6, 2018 at 1:16am PST

Who’s attending Web Summit?

Investors, startups, over 2 600 journalists, developers, entrepreneurs, agencies, graphic and UX designers, CEOs and founders are among over seventy thousand people that gathered to listen to the most current problems of the internet world and search for their solutions. Web Summit is a place for those looking for inspiration as well as for a business partner or for an idea to invest their money in.

Sam Felder speaking about his business concept

You will find big companies like Google, Youtube, Booking.com, BMW, Microsoft, Samsung, or Amazon discussing their tech news or solutions. Web Summit is quite a good event to meet customers and partners if you work with or outsource your projects to people from the other side of the Atlantic - not only you can discuss business but also get to know each other more during nice evenings in a quite warm Lisbon in November.

How to get the most out of Web Summit?

There is a mobile application issued just for this venue and you are obliged to have it otherwise you will not enter the place. It contains e-ticket, a list of all registered attendees, and a full schedule of speeches, interviews and discussion panels. The app definitely comes in useful during all three days of the conference.

Thanks to the individual QR code in the app you can use your mobile as a business card holder, keeping complete data (with a photo!) of people you’ve spoken with. In addition, the application contained SLIDO - a feature dedicated to asking speakers direct questions during their time on stage. When you sign in and mark things that you find interesting, the app will suggest you people with whom you have most in common and recommend best lectures to take part in.

What makes Web Summit such an exceptional event?

It does not need to be said that event as big as Websummit needs perfect organisation. My experience of this year’s edition shows that everything was done with due diligence; I was even able to obtain my badge at the airport, getting there three days before the conference. Few weeks ahead attendees received some guidelines on the summit and what to expect in Lisbon regarding possible problems with metro.

Organizers even took care of free evenings we had by booking the best nightclubs for socializing and networking (Pink Street and Pensao Amor are just perfect for such purposes). With stickers in the subway so you don’t miss the station and huge 3D letters in the most visited places of Lisbon it felt like the whole city is dedicated to Web Summit.

One of few signs with which Web Summit took over Lisbon at the beginning of November, Square Pedro IV

What can you expect from the conference?

Web Summit gathers three types of conferences and speeches you could attend to - presentations, one on one interviews, and the bigger panel consisting of 2-3 specialists on the discussed subjects. All of them lasted for 20-25 minutes and I must give credit to organizers for keeping them mostly on time. With an event of such magnitude, it’s no small feat!

Speeches were held in all 4 exhibition halls and in the main Altice Arena. They were divided according to topics e.g. MoneyConf, CryptoConf, MusicNotes, HealthConf, Auto/Tech & TalkRobot, creatiff, ContentMakers, SportsTrade, SaaSMonster, FullSTK. It is definitely a good idea to schedule what you are into in the app calendar but my advice is to also give yourself some time to wander around as there are so many fantastic ideas you can learn more about if you give them a chance. I was not planning to visit MusicNotes but I’m really happy that I gave it a chance since, in the end, I spent 1,5 hour learning about Fangage app, Fender cooperating with Flea (drummer from Red Hot Chilli Peppers), and Saavn’s new model of artist development and distribution.

Pitches and Alpha startup programmes

Apart from being "the best technology conference on the planet" according to Forbes, Web Summit is the place to show the world your startup. Going there will help you reach investors, press and probably potential customers. To be a part of this event you need to send an application describing your idea - if it is good enough, you will get a small booth and three discounted tickets for representatives.

There are three kinds of booths available (ALPHA, BETA, and START) depending on the phase of development and funding your startup is in. Moreover, if you are a startup exhibiting at Web Summit that received under €3 million in funding and has not had a discernible change in business model in the previous three years, you get a chance to appear at PITCH stages where you can describe your idea and discuss it with a panel of experts. And, since PITCH is a competition, winning it means fame and money for further growth!

User Experience on Web Summit

From the perspective of UX Designer visiting Web Summit is a chance to see what is going on in the real world of virtual solutions. Watching startup proposals is a huge discovery of different ideas. However, it also displays a lack of knowledge about strategy or monetization of some of the entrepreneurs. Among plenty of young people with startups that have great expectations towards their products, it is difficult to find any projects that could “swim in the blue ocean of innovation”.

In summary, if you decide to listen to people speaking at some conferences, you will leave Lisbon with your head full of new concepts and ready for the future knocking at your door.