An Ice Cube about how PyCon Sweden went online

Conferences in Times of Corona

The disruption in the event industry this year did also hit our organizing team at PyCon Sweden 2020 . Last year we arranged our biggest conference until then. A two day conference with 3 keynotes, 17 talks, 4 workshops and 2 panel discussions at a venue in the heart of Stockholm. For 2020 we had similar plans and then in March everything changed. Since the conference is usually planned for the fall, we had some buffer to decide if we even want to consider an on-site conference. We quickly decided against it and to go fully online instead. This didn't reduce the planning and we had new points to consider opening our registration up to the world.
With a lot of energy and will we extended PyCon Sweden 2020 and arranged a 2 day conference with multiple tracks, 4 keynotes, 35 talks, 4 workshops and 2 panel discussions!

Here is a checklist of things we had to do to arrange a conference of this format. One can invest more time in many of those points, like extended marketing, a remarkable state of the art webpage, intense participant & sponsor engagement and high entertainment in general.
This checklist is not fully complete. Still it should allow you to arrange a conference with the main points covered.

4 - 5 months before the conference:
Gather the team and set up regular meetings
Take notes during meetings, for example like this
Decide a date
Decide on the size (multiple tracks, 2 days)
Test and decide on a streaming platform
Invite Keynote speakers
Setup a web page

2 - 3 months before the conference:
Open call for proposals
Social media coverage, email ads
Publish on social media reminders
Contact sponsors, sync expectations
Keynote announcement
Close CFP and decide on talks/workshops

1 month before the conference:
Increase meeting frequency
Open registration
Create schedule & sync with speakers
Set up broadcasts, background, links
Publish schedule
Set up participant engagement (give away, Slack)
Publish on social media reminders

2 weeks before the conference:
Volunteer On-boarding
Calendar reminders during conference in Slack
Speakers Rehearsals
Publish on social media reminders

1 week before the conference:
Prepare opening, closing and moderation
Close Registration
Prepare social media coverage during the conference
Publish on social media reminders
Design and prepare preliminary feedback form
Clarify team communication and responsibilities

Conference day:
Go live
Have fun
Create conversation/initiate engagement on Slack etc.
Ask for feedback
Debrief and celebrate

1 week after the conference:
Analyse feedback
Retrospect and lessons learned

Of course there are many more things that one could do during preparation time or the conference. And if there is not a lack of anything it is ideas. However keep in mind, that the time and energy you can spend on an event like this is highly dependent on the amount and availability of voluntarily work.
Since we want to keep our heads cool during the conference itself it is wise to prioritise and strike certain points out in order to give others enough attention. If things go terribly wrong and we are already at maximum capacity it could mean a total meltdown for some of us and would destroy our team dynamic drastically.
At PyCon Sweden we were incredibly lucky that we found committed volunteers that took full ownership to ensure a great experience both for the speakers and the audience. And I am thankful for each single contribution!
There are always some hick-ups here and there, especially with technic involved it usually doesn't get easier. A muted microphone, multiple posts with the same content, loss of connection up to a surrendering computer.
But honestly isn't exactly that the delightful and exciting part of a live conference?

I hope you found the checklist usable and wish you good luck for your online event or conference!

All the best,
Christine