Jeepers. I spent the weekend in Sydney with a whole bunch of great bloggers… and I am a bit tired today! It’s okay. I’m tired in a really good way. I met a ton of great people I had not met before.
There were over one hundred bloggers attending the Voices of 2013 events that I’ve been helping to coordinate. The Blogging Masterclass was held at Megan Morton’s venue The Studio (right next door to The School) and then a party at Luxe Studios. It was a BIG fun day!
I was particularly thrilled to finally meet Lisa from The Red Thread (warm & quite tall!), Sneh from Cook Republic (adorable & clever!), Kate from Finger.Fork.Knife (super cute!) and Karen from Yellow Dandy. Actually, there are a lot more people I was thrilled to meet. The rooms were full of bloggers. People I’d been reading for ages, and some I’d started reading as part of my Voices work. It’s amazing to see how many interesting and beautiful blogs are being published every day. I think we often hear a lot about the same bunch of ‘big blogs’ but this event was a showcase for blogs of all sizes (as well as a showcase for some crazily well dressed people. Gosh!)
Hailey Bartholomew (of whom I am a huge fan girl) was the keynote speaker and she had lots of people in tears with her presentation about making ideas happen. I know. It doesn’t sound very teary, but Hailey showed some of her film work, talked about overcoming difficulties and making your dreams reality. I found it super inspiring. I loved it, actually. It’s rare to attend an event where a personal, authentic tone is set so quickly.
The panels that followed were equally frank and really informative (I thought!) It’s possible I am extremely biased…!
My highlights:
Hailey’s prezzo
Meeting Hailey’s family. Esp Zali and Poppy.
Catching up with the creators of so many great blogs
Gorgeous flowers by The Flower Drum
Getting a real view of the blogs and brands relationship (esp the bits from Brian at Ogilvy)
Lexi & Rebecca & Stacey!
Cintia and Viv’s sparkles.
Pippa!
Meeting the very spunky and super smart Jen Bishop!
Sophie!
Eyeballing all the style-y fashion bloggers (I don’t get to meet them, usually!)
Working with the ace girls at Kidspot. They are a gorgeous, hardworking little ‘family!’
The caterer man who kept bringing me duck pancakes and kind words
Catching up with some of the SUPER BLOGGERS: Hair Romance (swoon!), A Beach Cottage, Danimezza
Watching the room warm up at the Masterclass, seeing people taking lots of notes.
Saying the word ‘Uglyass’ in front of 100+ people.
Carly’s amazing tweet-casting at the events.
You know… some bloggers cop a lot of flack. Blogging is sometimes seen as super competitive… but this weekend it was just about a bunch of ace people getting to know each other, being geeky and talking about important stuff that matters to us. It was nice to be face to face and see how similar we all are (and yet totes different!) I’m a big fan of in-real-life-ing!
Did you go? Maybe tell us all what you thought?!
x Pip