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WITH THE DUBLIN Web Summit officially starting tomorrow, preparation for it is in full swing as many descend into the capital for the three-day conference.
The event is expected to bring in more than €100 million to the Irish economy, according to Failte Ireland, and will see more than 22,000 people attending, and over 2,000 startups exhibiting
It’s going to be a hectic three days, regardless of how many of them you will be there for, but if you haven’t done any preparation for it yet, here’s what to keep in mind.
Learn the layout
For one, the Web Summit is more spread out in comparison to previous years, since there are almost twice as many stages as before (nine stages and one cinema screen to be exact).
Because of that, the conference now expands to both Herbert Park and Simmonscourt, which are a few minutes walk away from the main RDS arena.
Main RDS Building - Marketing Stage, Builders Stage, Library Stage, Machine Stage, Music Stage, Sport Stage, Film Stage.
RDS Simmonscourt – Centre Stage, Enterprise Stage.
Herbert Park – Food Summit.
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If you’re there for only a day, then it’s likely you will only be able to fit in talks from two or three stages at most, assuming you will want to catch talks from the main stage at some point.
Roughly, it will take you around five to eight minutes to walk from one venue to another, the exception being the walk from Herbert Park to RDS Simmonscourt where you will need to give yourself 15 minutes. That said, however, it’s better to overestimate the time it will take to get there so you don’t miss the beginning of a talk. On a related note…
Make sure you’re wearing comfortable shoes
Even if your plan is to say within the one section, you’re going to be walking around a lot anyway as you’ll want to see as much as possible. It’s better if you’re wearing shoes that are comfy, or be able to change to them if needed if you’re going to be there for the three days.
Pick out the key talks you want to see
With talks lasting from 15 minutes to an hour depending on the stage and topic, it’s recommended that you pick out the talks you really want to see first (if you haven’t already).
It’s best to limit it to five main talks at most (per day) that you really want to see. That way, not only will you catch them all, but you won’t feel as bad if you go off the beaten track, and you will.
If you have trouble deciding, a quick pick of the more interesting talks at the main stage can be found further below.
Don’t be too rigid with your plans.
There are two reasons for this. The first and obvious reason is that you will likely be taking trips from the main stage to some of the other stages. Regardless of distance, you will need to give yourself some time to walk to and from them as well as taking other impromptu breaks.
The second is there are going to be distractions. A lot of distractions. Part of the fun of events like this is being able to wander around and see what stands and companies are out there. It’s important to have a plan, but make sure you give it some breathing space as well.
And above all
Enjoy the event. There will be so much going on that you’re inevitably going to miss out of a number of things, but with some advance planning, you can get the most out of it.
If you’re unable to attend…
There will be a live stream of the Main Stage on YouTube, and if you’re not sure what talks to catch, here are the ones to watch from the Main Stage.
Tuesday
9:55 am – Brendan Iribe (Oculus Rift) in conversation with Peter Ruben (Wired)
10:45 am – John Collison (Stripe) in conversation with David Rowan (Wired)
12:15 pm – The Role of Technology in Filmmaking
12:35 pm – Eva Longoria with Jemima Khan Vanity Fair
1:20 pm – Can robots feel? Andra Keay (Silicon Valley Robotics)
1:35 pm – Meet Nao the Robot: Laura Bokokza (Alderbaran)
2:35 pm – Artificial Intelligence: Gary Marcus (The New Yorker)
4:10 pm – Is There A Right to Privacy?: Stewart Baker (Steptoe & Johnson LLP), Matthew Prince (Cloudflare) James Ball (The Guardian)
Wednesday
12:55 pm – The Role of Tech in Pop Culture: Dick Glover (Funny or Die) David Goldberg (Surveymonkey)
1:10 pm – How Data was used to win the Presidential Election: Dan Siroker (Optimizely)
2:40 pm – The View from Space: Scott Larson (Urthecast)
4:40 pm – TV in the Age of Technology
Thursday
9:40 am – Drone Demo: Christian Sanz (Skycatch)
10:35 am – The Future of Wearables: Liam Casey (PCH) Tim O’Reilly (O’Reilly Media)
11:20 am – The Next Frontier in 3D Printing – The Unintended Collides with the Unimagined: Avi Reichental (3D systems)
12:45 pm – Real Life on Demand: Oisin Hanrahan (Handybook), Jay Bregman & Ingrid Lunden (TechCrunch)
1:35 pm – Music in a Digital Age: Adrian Grenier (Shft), Eric Wahlflors (Soundcloud) Jimmy Chamberlin (LiveOne)
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Best of luck Shannon. Congrats that you are now free from the grip of the DAA that was destroying you. Nice Airport to fly in and out of.
Great news for Shannon airport and from the surrounding areas. The airport is a pleasure to fly in and out from as a regular flyer so nice to get some good news in regards to its development.
Great news for Shannon.. Feck all the begrudgers..
Now that the DAA has creamed the best of Shannon traffic….
Ryanair will slime back big time, o leary doesn’t want to deal with the DAA, he needs Shannon if he goes ahead with transatlantic flights. Shannon will take off(excuse the pun) big time, also a lot of other airlines will fly in to Shannon, especially US airlines.
I wouldn’t blame ryanair for not wanting to deal with the DAA. There money grabbers with terrible track records when it comes to running a airport. I wouldn’t be surprised if shannon is a huge success and puts Dublin airport to shame.
Great news
I’m confused, how can something that’s loss making, decrease in passengers of 60% create 850 new jobs. this plan does have the hallmarks of the Irish government all over it.
Maybe the moderator will explain why he/she removes truthful comments from this and other pages, comments such as..
Some Dublin and Cork politicians as well as civil servants colluded with each other so as to destroy Shannon Airport, anyone who denies that there was a conspiracy against Shannon and the Mid-West is living in cloud cuckoo land or the land of self denial.
The fact is that the DAA took €1 billion of what was rightfully Shannon’s money, they took this money by getting a gift of Aer Rianta International from Seamus Brennan.
The only interest the DAA had in Shannon was to collude with Dublin and Cork Civil servants and politicians to destroy Shannon for their own greedy, parochial, narrow minded gain. It was the old “Cork and Dublin” old boys club. A club which was (and is) horrified at the though of a major, successful International Airport only 10 minutes drive from Limerick City.
Could not have said it better myself !!!
Great news for Shannon Airport, and hopefully ye will get back the business that DAA WRONGFULLY took from ye…….Great Xmas present for all in that area, and the jobs will come imho..
wonder will aer lingus work with them, as most of the time we from kerry have limited flights or no flights for months to new york,,, but thanks to delta for picking up the slack and cheaper prices,, cant believe they are giving them free reign as they have been trying to shut them down for years, sad as its the nicest airport to show ireland at its finest,, driving in and seeing castles, rivers,, lush green fields,, i really hope this is for the good and our government not trying the sneaky,,, i for one love shannon airport, and pray they get it back off the ground and go for it,,
Brilliant news for Shannon , love using Shannon airport , it’s such a shame so few flights leave the airport these days but this is about to change . Would always be my Airport of choice , it’s quick to get through , staff are brilliant , well done Shannon airport
everyone loves Shannon Claire, remember going there as kids just to watch the planes land, cycling from Limerick to the “golf ball” to get a better view…..great memories…..awesome
Mega news for the Airport as the region had been neglected for some time now . Good luck for the future to all concerned.
Great news for Shannon for a change. Merging with DAA in the first place was a bad and calculated move by Bertie & Co. A lot of flights have been taken by DAA for Dublin’s benefit but can eventually be wooed back to some degree if done properly.
Let’s hope it bring some much needed prosperity for the region once more.
Shannon should now sue the DAA for the return of the €1 billion that the DAA took when Aer Rianta International was gifted to them by seamus brennan, plus the €160 millions that ARI make every year.
The DAA tried to destroy the Shannon Region, it’s time to make them pay.
Great news. Now we need the routes. Had to leave Limerick at 1am yesterday morning for the 1st flight out of Dub to Brussels. It would be great to crawl out of bed and take the handy spin out to Shannon.
Likely to be a very chilly day in hell when this delivers 850 jobs.
This will deliver 10,000 jobs within ten years……………….We have got the very thing that Dublin and Cork were (are) afraid of, a totally Independent Airport, a strong aerport = a strong region…..we will have both.
Yes Gerard,
I also see you got loads of thumbs down from the serendipity brigade.
@ AJ
You’re a dreamer. You’re loyalty to the region is admirable but reality will be dissapointing and as for
‘he needs Shannon if he goes ahead with transatlantic flights’
Shannon hasn’t been needed for transatlantic flights since the 80′s
@josh….Shannon was and is the place most US airlines want to fly to. Aer lyingus (sic) and the DAA put a stop to most transatlantic flights coming in to Shannon. Most US tourists want to fly directly to the West, Aer lyingus stopped them. Dublin is just another City to them.
Shannon will boom, to the disgust and dismay of Dublin, Cork and Mayo……another reason for these people to bitch about the Limerick/Shannon Region. Raising a mug of tea to this momentous decision.
AJ, the same begrudges didn’t want Limerick to have a university.
This is great news for the Midwest.
great news was at Shannon airport over Halloween it’s a ghost airport with at most 1 flight an hour. it’s a very handy airport for us in the west, if only it flew to more destinations, since Ryanair pulled most of its flights out the place it has become very quite.
Can’t wait for more flights – biggest problem with Shannon is no flights going out of there (for me anyway). So tired of the Dublin/Cork drive or the Heathrow connection to get anywhere other than the UK.
Happy Days and I hope it delivers the jobs to the region
Why was my comment taken down. It was not offensive to anybody.
Where is the freedom of speech on the journal these days.
Great news for Shannon Airport – Clare Galway and Limerick. Lets get Michael O Leary back ASAP. Ryanair should make Shannon its Headquarters. Lets get new flights ASAP.The people of the Mid West must support Shannon in preference to other airports in Ireland. A big thanks to Minister Michael Noonan – great work for Limerick and Clare
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