The St. Petersburg WN Conference in 2021 was held as part of the hybrid WN Eastern Europe
Last week — from July 9 to July 10 — an offline WN Conference was held. It took place as part of the hybrid large-scale event WN Eastern Europe. We tell you about the results of the event.
Innovations
Let’s start with a little background.
The summer session of the WN Conference has traditionally been held in St. Petersburg since 2012. Since that time, it has not been held only once — last year against the background of the first wave of the world pandemic. This year the event has returned. However, there were no changes.
One of the key ones is now WN St.Petersburg part of a large hybrid event. It’s about WN Eastern Europe. He has a separate online lecture program with his own virtual exposition (about this — next time, WN Eastern Europe is still in progress, it’s too early to sum up its results).
The events are united by the WN Hub platform, within which participants of both events can communicate online. It also allows you to watch both virtual performances of WN Eastern Europe and broadcasts of lectures by WN St.Petersburg, and at the same time communicate with its speakers.
“Our task is to make the WN Hub a universal working tool that solves b2b tasks within the framework of the events held. Thanks to him, you can find out if there are companies you are interested in at the event, write to their representatives, show the project and immediately discuss the broadcast performance,” Pavel Ryakkonen, CEO of WN Media, reveals the possibilities of the hub.
But not a single hub. Among other significant changes to WN St.Petersburg is a change of venue. The event was held for the first time at the Pribaltiyskaya Hotel. It is located in the West of the city and goes directly to the Gulf of Finland.
Facts and figures
From the point of view of numbers, WN St.Petersburg is the largest offline event of WN Media since the beginning of the pandemic (in May, the company successfully held an event in China, but it was a little more modest).
2000 people from all over the world watched the event taking place in St. Petersburg online. Lectures were given in Russian, but simultaneous translation into English was also available for those who wished.
Personally, 700 people attended the event in two days (there could have been more, but according to local rules, now no more than 500 people can be on the site at the same time).
“This year, the preparation of the St. Petersburg WN Conference turned out to be more difficult than usual. We were not completely sure that it would take place. At any moment, the authorities could announce new restrictions, because of which we would have to postpone the conference. But everything worked out. And I am very grateful to everyone who came,” says Yulia Lebedeva, Executive Director of WN Media Group.
Among the guests were both representatives of large companies (for example, Pixonic, Belka Games, Saber Interactive, MGVC, Yandex, Google, Adjust, SHAREit, Zorka.Agency) and indie, who showed their projects as part of the developers’ exhibition. It was possible to view the full list of companies and schedule meetings with their representatives through the hub’s meeting system.
The lecture part of WN St.Petersburg consisted of more than 30 speeches. Among other things, Alice Chumachenko, CEO of Sberbank Games, made a program report (we have already prepared its printed version), and App Annie talked about the Russian gaming market (our transcript is here).
The round tables were also very successful. On the first day, the situation with creatives on iOS was discussed in detail by representatives of AdSide Media, HOOKS, CREOS and PlayDucky, and on the second day Pixonic, Zillion Whales, Heart Core and Ciliz talked about the processes in game design perfectly.
Also among the speakers were noted: Super.com , AppQuantum, Mail.Ru Group, AppsFlyer, AppQuantum and many others. All reports in video format will be available on WN Hub at the end of this month.
What’s next?
WN Media Group plans to hold conferences on three different continents this fall — everything will depend on success in the fight against the pandemic. The next conference in Russia is to be held on October 13-14 in Moscow. It will also be hybrid.
“We have been living in completely new conditions for more than a year. This does not mean that it will always be like this. However, the global lockdown forced everyone to take a fresh look at familiar things. And now it is difficult to imagine an event without at least a minimal presence on the network,” Ryakkonen sums up.
