Speakeasy was awarded a 3-year contract in 2018 by Education Scotland for the management of the Scottish Learning Festival Conference.
Held at the SEC in Glasgow over 2 days, the Scottish Learning Festival and Exhibition is a pivotal event in the education calendar, inspiring better teaching and learning and helping created a confident teaching profession in the 21st Century.
Speakeasy were responsible for the conference element of the Festival which included the management of initial submissions for the sessions and the review process. Once the papers were selected, Speakeasy worked with Education Scotland on the design of the programme to incorporate up to 130 sessions and manage all the speakers and their requirements. In addition, we were asked to help create and deliver an exciting, engaging and interactive session for ‘STEM Live’ which was being held on the second day of SLF 2018.
For both the 2018 and 2019 conferences, we adapted the room layout and built a stage on the main floor of the auditorium so that we could create an inclusive environment. We designed and produced ‘festival chairs’ for Education Scotland where delegates got to build their own chairs for the keynote sessions and really made the sessions interactive and engaging.
The days consisted of a jam-packed programme of keynote lectures, parallel sessions and live demo exhibition sessions in between. The turnaround and build for each and every session required careful planning and both conferences were a roaring success!
In Numbers:
- Over 4,500 delegates over the course of 2 days
- 204 Sessions submitted
- 20 Themes
- 130 Parallel Sessions
- Over 105 invited speakers included school children from all over Scotland
Education Scotland also commissioned Speakeasy to build an interactive and engaging Education Scotland stand for the conference exhibition.
It is always a huge pleasure to work with Speakeasy. You, and your team, are always professional, calm and charming – but with a little bit of fun thrown in for good measure. A great combination of skills. I felt that the atmosphere around the event was exciting and dynamic, however, STEM Live is what everyone is talking about and it has been hailed a great success – thanks to you and your team. I think we will be talking about those chairs for a long time to come!!
-Linda Rae, Senior Education Officer, Education Scotland
