Montreal agency Sid Lee wasn’t aiming to make last year’s inaugural C2-MTL a conventional event. Face it, there aren’t a lot of business conferences where the express intent is to make attendees uncomfortable and a little off balance, especially after charging them more than $3,000 a ticket.
The plan for the event’s second year? Make the 3,000 attendees from 30 countries even more unsettled. Sid Lee learned attendees actually like it.
Lego's Serious Play station at C2-MTL stressed 'hands-on, minds-on' team learning
Last year, the workshops, where sponsors group attendees into teams and create challenges and interactions, were seen as a break activity from an A-list of speakers (this year’s includes Sir Richard Branson, French designer Philippe Starck and fashion icon Diane von Furstenberg).
“This year, workshops will be a bigger part of the experience,” says Jean-François Bouchard, Sid Lee president and curator of C2.
Word from Montreal is the second time around is proving to be easier after the expected chaos of launching such an ambitious event. “We have a better sense of what the pacing should be. We can focus more on the content and the production.”
C2 stresses learning – not deal making – but Bouchard says he was “staggered” by a provincial government study that found participants discussed or negotiated a reported $182 million in business at the three-day event.
Other changes to the 2013 edition (which kicked off Tuesday) include the addition of Intel as a global sponsor. Bouchard says C2 will explore growing its presence internationally with Intel, but has absolutely no plans to take the show on the road to Las Vegas with the Cirque.
