Reflections on #itelliFest2020, the virtual event that attracted over 1,100 registrations.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s itelligence UK conference transitioned to become a virtual event. The event took place from the 6th to the 9th of October in a festival format and attracted over 1,100 registrations.

Utilising the Hopin interactive Event Platform we streamed live from a temporary (socially distanced) studio in our Coventry Office. Hopin enables attendees, presenters and sponsors a number of interaction opportunities including text chat and video conversations. The text chat proved highly popular as it allowed delegates to influence the content of the conference in real time.

Day one began with keynote sessions including a conversation between itelligence UK&I MD Justin Brading and Michiel Verhoeven the new SAP UK&I MD. This was followed by our celebrity keynote speaker, astronaut Tim Peake. Tim shared incredible memories and some awe – inspiring photographs from his time on the international space station. His insight into surviving in, and thriving after, isolation was truly relevant during this time of lockdowns.

Delivered over 4 days the rest of the sessions focused on the topics that are important to customers and were supported by a range of experts from itelligence. We presented a series of half – day “streams” and over 30 sessions covering S/4HANA and the Intelligent Enterprise, Analytics, HXM, Customer Experience, Managed Services and Cloud Transformation, finishing on Day 4 with a focus on Finance Transformation and Spend Management.

The event also featured Plenary and Q&A sessions with customers, Ask the Expert Roundtables, deep dive Focus Sessions, and replicating the feel of a physical event attendees could visit our Expo area and engage with our Sponsors at their virtual booths.

Andy Steer, VP & Chief Technology Officer, itelligence UK commented, “For the last session of #itelliFest2020 I was joined by SAP Global Innovation Evangelist Timo Elliott for a fun interactive session where the content and direction was directly influenced by feedback from attendees.”

Andy continued, “This was the first time we have run a 100% online customer conference and there is much to review and learn. However, it is clear from the high attendance rate and customer feedback that these types of events are in many cases now preferred to more traditional physical conferences.”

We are pleased to announce that #itelliFest2020 is now available on demand. To watch your favourite presentations again or share with colleagues, you can stream all the content from our #itelliFest2020 Video platform.