Hello reader, IGO entered your feed! 👋

Welcome to my WebSummit experiences summary (well, almost like a guide too). I've been attending WebSummit in Portugal for the past 3 editions and here are my honest takes on what it can and not provide for both the curious general public and for people who want to grow inside the tech field.

So make yourself at home for quite a few minutes of reading alongside your favourite coffee ☕

This time, I will provide you an index to showcase the best way possible.

• 🎫 Tickets;

• 🔍 What are you looking for?;

• 📣 I'm afraid it's too intimidating;

• Security is taken seriously;

• Go prepared;

You may have heard that the 1st phase of ticket sales can start for as low as a 2 for 1 for about 950€ after the conference took place (these are sold for the next year's edition in that same place.) Eventually, if you're subscribed to WebSummit's email newsletters you'll find that out, along with a couple more discounts throughout the rest of the months till that following edition. Three months before the event takes place you'll be informed of the very last discount, and eventually get a ticket in the range of 590€ to 650€. (It may vary). But after that time, the sky's the limit and you may even find tickets worth more than a thousand euros.

This surely didn't stress me over when I found out I could go for free!

WebSummit offers different ways to get a huge deal on tickets or even attend the conference for free in all days! As far as I know, Women In Tech tickets are also available for less than the General Admission Normal ticket.

However, the free ones might sound a bit more interesting. Your options are:

Okay you're in! What now?

When you're granted a ticket, WebSummit recommends you to download their App, and it's very important you do it.

By downloading their App, you're already allowing yourself to start connecting with others straight away. Fill in your details, and please, don't lie! This is a great opportunity to put yourself out there and find suitable people, services and knowledge for you and you only. In the App, you can also sketch your agenda. There's thousands of talks, workshops, masterclasses, meetups and other events taking place at the same time in different locations. You can plan it with care and even be invited to meetups, you do you!

Now… depending on what you are as a person, it may take a while to figure out what you really want. Speaking for myself, it took me 3 years to understand I don't suit being sat and listen to the talks as much as I thought I would — Centre Stage ones are fine though. Why? I've always felt like a couple side speakers lack entertainment, in the aspect that they make you yawn instead of making you listen carefully. Centre Stage criteria for talks seems to be different however though it really depends on what the talk is about and what type of people are listening to it as well - you'll certainly find things that you like and others that you couldn't care less. If talks already sound boring to you, go all in for meetups and outside events that you can find on luma.com or WebSummit's Official Partners websites. Talk with people youself, formally and informally and explore the booths as much as you can to gain awesome freebies! 🎁

We've all been at that stage where intimidation wins you over not to try new experiences. When it comes to WebSummit, intimidation should be fought with confidence. You clearly have a role to play in your own future so why waste it just because you think someone you haven't met yet, knows twenty times more than you do?

It is no place to put that to test. Instead just go. The broad and general advice that everyone gives? Yep, that one: Don't think, just go. Someone will find you interesting, and even if no one does, you'll see interesting stuff from others, which certainly helps shaping your own horizons.

From my perspective, there is strong organization from the moment you claim your physical credentials to the moment you leave the enclosure of the event. Your very first 5 minutes entrance (at least) come with showing your bracelet and identification tag to entrance staff and two row of securities, followed by a corridor of more security till you finally reach the bag inspection area.

Throughout the way, you're showed the list of forbidden items to make sure you're ready to pass the inspection, one that may require to take your belongings out until the limits of your bag are seen. Right after passing it, you still have a line of staff scanning your credentials QR code that ultimately is connected to your WebSummit profile that you set up in the App.

Whether you have the budget or not to afford eating every single time inside the venue, you may consider going prepared with extra food. Despite the prices being quite outrageous (for what Portugal is), there's a shopping mall right beside the venue with a big supermarket. There you can find sandwiches, take-way food, and in general the dining area may be a better shot than the inner food caravans. This is particularly useful for you not to spend 100% of your time in one busy place when there's plenty of stuff you planned to watch or participate in.

Speaking of planning, your agenda in the App, is your best friend. Prepare it good.

That's about it. The point of this blog was not to provide a guide on how to do things at a tech conference (ironic somehow) but rather sharing advices providing on what my experiences had been. There's quite a few details I retain from attending these sort of experiences. By sharing them I pretend to help both the audiences to evaluate their situation towards the event, and also the event managers to understand the audience's point of view!

Right now I'm working on a YouTube video of my WebSummit Lisbon 2025 experience where I will also be including one or another place I visited in Lisbon despite spending a short time there.

Thank you for reading, will be seeing you soon! 👋

❤️ If you desire to share your old memories and support this idea, check out the Orb's club: https://orb.com/c/aerochrome

Help aerochrome growing by collecting this post! ❤️

Hello reader, IGO entered your feed! 👋

Welcome to my WebSummit experiences summary (well, almost like a guide too). I've been attending WebSummit in Portugal for the past 3 editions and here are my honest takes on what it can and not provide for both the curious general public and for people who want to grow inside the tech field.

So make yourself at home for quite a few minutes of reading alongside your favourite coffee ☕

This time, I will provide you an index to showcase the best way possible.

• 🎫 Tickets;

• 🔍 What are you looking for?;

• 📣 I'm afraid it's too intimidating;

• Security is taken seriously;

• Go prepared;

You may have heard that the 1st phase of ticket sales can start for as low as a 2 for 1 for about 950€ after the conference took place (these are sold for the next year's edition in that same place.) Eventually, if you're subscribed to WebSummit's email newsletters you'll find that out, along with a couple more discounts throughout the rest of the months till that following edition. Three months before the event takes place you'll be informed of the very last discount, and eventually get a ticket in the range of 590€ to 650€. (It may vary). But after that time, the sky's the limit and you may even find tickets worth more than a thousand euros.

This surely didn't stress me over when I found out I could go for free!

WebSummit offers different ways to get a huge deal on tickets or even attend the conference for free in all days! As far as I know, Women In Tech tickets are also available for less than the General Admission Normal ticket.

However, the free ones might sound a bit more interesting. Your options are:

Okay you're in! What now?

When you're granted a ticket, WebSummit recommends you to download their App, and it's very important you do it.

By downloading their App, you're already allowing yourself to start connecting with others straight away. Fill in your details, and please, don't lie! This is a great opportunity to put yourself out there and find suitable people, services and knowledge for you and you only. In the App, you can also sketch your agenda. There's thousands of talks, workshops, masterclasses, meetups and other events taking place at the same time in different locations. You can plan it with care and even be invited to meetups, you do you!

Now… depending on what you are as a person, it may take a while to figure out what you really want. Speaking for myself, it took me 3 years to understand I don't suit being sat and listen to the talks as much as I thought I would — Centre Stage ones are fine though. Why? I've always felt like a couple side speakers lack entertainment, in the aspect that they make you yawn instead of making you listen carefully. Centre Stage criteria for talks seems to be different however though it really depends on what the talk is about and what type of people are listening to it as well - you'll certainly find things that you like and others that you couldn't care less. If talks already sound boring to you, go all in for meetups and outside events that you can find on luma.com or WebSummit's Official Partners websites. Talk with people youself, formally and informally and explore the booths as much as you can to gain awesome freebies! 🎁

We've all been at that stage where intimidation wins you over not to try new experiences. When it comes to WebSummit, intimidation should be fought with confidence. You clearly have a role to play in your own future so why waste it just because you think someone you haven't met yet, knows twenty times more than you do?

It is no place to put that to test. Instead just go. The broad and general advice that everyone gives? Yep, that one: Don't think, just go. Someone will find you interesting, and even if no one does, you'll see interesting stuff from others, which certainly helps shaping your own horizons.

From my perspective, there is strong organization from the moment you claim your physical credentials to the moment you leave the enclosure of the event. Your very first 5 minutes entrance (at least) come with showing your bracelet and identification tag to entrance staff and two row of securities, followed by a corridor of more security till you finally reach the bag inspection area.

Throughout the way, you're showed the list of forbidden items to make sure you're ready to pass the inspection, one that may require to take your belongings out until the limits of your bag are seen. Right after passing it, you still have a line of staff scanning your credentials QR code that ultimately is connected to your WebSummit profile that you set up in the App.

Whether you have the budget or not to afford eating every single time inside the venue, you may consider going prepared with extra food. Despite the prices being quite outrageous (for what Portugal is), there's a shopping mall right beside the venue with a big supermarket. There you can find sandwiches, take-way food, and in general the dining area may be a better shot than the inner food caravans. This is particularly useful for you not to spend 100% of your time in one busy place when there's plenty of stuff you planned to watch or participate in.

Speaking of planning, your agenda in the App, is your best friend. Prepare it good.

That's about it. The point of this blog was not to provide a guide on how to do things at a tech conference (ironic somehow) but rather sharing advices providing on what my experiences had been. There's quite a few details I retain from attending these sort of experiences. By sharing them I pretend to help both the audiences to evaluate their situation towards the event, and also the event managers to understand the audience's point of view!

Right now I'm working on a YouTube video of my WebSummit Lisbon 2025 experience where I will also be including one or another place I visited in Lisbon despite spending a short time there.

Thank you for reading, will be seeing you soon! 👋

❤️ If you desire to share your old memories and support this idea, check out the Orb's club: https://orb.com/c/aerochrome

Help aerochrome growing by collecting this post! ❤️