Build the convening for the conveners.

technique — attributed to Laurie Kirby

When the people who shape a category are isolated from each other, the category gets dumber. The intervention is not another trade show. It is a small room with curatorial standards — five or six hundred of the right people, not five thousand of any people — where the programmers and buyers compare notes before the rest of the world gets the goods. FestForums was built on this inversion: a convening for the conveners, not a convening at them.

For anyone considering a new event in a category that already has trade shows but no real community.

community-design, curation, founding-premise, isolation