Matt's five key takeaways from BIBA 2023

So that was BIBA 2023, done and dusted for another year. Was it different, better (or worse) than previous iterations of the now seemingly inevitable trip to Manchester? Here are my five key takeaways for anyone struggling with FOMO, fatigue or memory-fade.

People – it was busy. According to BIBA 9,000 attendees-busy. That’s a lot, and it felt like it on the first day. It was the second year back after a two-year Covid hiatus but it definitely had more energy than 2021’s conference. Perhaps due to a hangover of two years of caution around such packed venues, but this year the masks and gloves truly were off.

There was a mix of the usual planned and chance meetings, which is the point of the whole thing after all. Current and former clients and colleagues, rivals and friends, opportunities and of course that one stand or individual you want to swerve, the BIBA conference is a people thing.

Planning – Getting your homework done ahead of time is something we all know we should do but rarely have the will or inclination to do. There’s nothing like a pressing deadline to focus the mind. But this year, we somehow managed to get our messaging, meetings, articles – general PR’ing – done before the conference, leaving the event itself to be largely about seeing the fruits of this labour play out. This left more time to really engage with the conference, rather than the usual chasing clients and press around the warrens of Manchester Central.

Parties – Let’s be honest, part of the draw of BIBA is the networking outside of the hall. It’s the part some live for and some loath. As one journalist put it to me, it’s where the misogyny ratchets up a notch. Is that unfair? I would say it’s where true personalities are sometimes laid bare in all their good and bad forms, where friendships can be made and enhanced, or where true colours that should not been seen, are.

Of all the parties, a special mention to Arc Legal – theirs are very good, last years Oasis tribute was supplanted with Blur and an hour of Denise van Outen on the decks – great, clean fun for all.

Protestors – I’m told this not a new thing, I’ve only been to 7 BIBAs, but it was an interesting experience to have to walk (no one ran) the gauntlet of protestors outside the hall. I’d assumed it would be about something that my own political leaning would baulk against but then one of my more open-minded colleagues actually took the time to converse and find out what the kafuffle was all about. Whether or not the East African Crude Oil Pipeline is “Carbon Bomb” I don’t know, but there are already 22 insurers who’ve backed away from the project and the protestor’s own literature named and applaud some of them.

Puppies – How no one tried to scoop one of these little bundles of joy away from the centrepiece of the Wellness space I don’t know. Surely it was on the minds of some.

For those who missed it, you were either too busy or already blessed with ridiculously high levels of joy and inner calmness. As another colleague put it – they provided levels of happiness that are illegal in any other setting.