glad to NOT BE at Web Summit in Vancouver.
Why would i want to listen to speakers who had to pay the $25k fee to be able to talk?
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@Crissy At a conference that I ran for many years, we occasionally had potential sponsors tell us that they expected to get a speaker slot for their sponsorship.
@uxMark Hi Mark, thanks for sharing. It makes sense to give speaker slots to sponsors.
With my post, it is a personal opinion as someone I personally know who spoke last year (he is an individual and Sr. Coder, not an organization, mentioned that around xmas 2025, he was approached privately to apeak and pay that fee).
Like me, he disagreed with the methodology as this is like paid ad…He is attending as a participant).
@Crissy For us, letting sponsors speak breaks an implicit promise to our attendees that we’d provide the best possible program. Our agenda was open that way, whereas a sponsor’s agenda might be different. Agreed that charging individual speakers isn’t a great practice. It excludes people what aren’t in a financial position to pay, which is an equity issue and skews the program. FWIW, at our events we covered all speaker expenses and paid an honourarium, which we thought was more ethical.
@uxMark appreciate the disclosure; Web Summit asking speakers to pay is not the best possible program.
Thanks for understanding it is exactly my issue with Web Summit; It’s unethical to charge individual speakers because it excludes people what aren’t in a financial position to pay! Like u mention 💯
I was very proud to see that your events, you “covered all speaker expenses and paid an honourarium.” That is the way and thank you for the integrity, much respect and 💚❤️
