The Next Everything Conference
A Quick Recap
- Year 1, September 2019: About 100 multipotentialites came together in Portland, Oregon for fun, deep learning, weird experiments, and life-long friendships. Mission accomplished according to this recap article!
- Year 2, August 2024: We shrunk the event to 55 multipods in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The special sauce remained the same as returning participants said they enjoyed it even more and newcomers had their socks knocked off, too.
We'll Level with Ya
ETC 2024 Cost Almost $50,000 and Lost $24.205.10
It was the price we paid for an amazing, uncompromising experience; an intentionally sponsor-free, non-commercial one where we paid for what people and services were worth.
But we can’t do it again the same way, and we need your support and guidance for the best path forward.
What Does Year 3 Look Like?
Well … we don’t exactly know yet. The emphasis now is getting as much support as possible from our previous and future participants so we have the resources to do something incredible again.
Moving Forward and Ways to Contribute
Want to make a special impact on the next ETC besides (or in addition to) getting a ticket?
We need a lot of help to pull this off and meet the already sky-high expectations of our returning and new ETCers.
1. Pay for Part of the Experience
$50,000.00. It’ll run us somewhere in that ballpark if we recreate the magic of 2024 again in 2025.
Are you willing to pay for a part or all of some of these items that make the experience unique?
- Venue rental fees
- Special participants honorarium
- Welcome party
- Snacks and beverages
- Name badges, lanyards, and sleeves
- Lodging and transportation for key people
- Vanessa Tharp’s event planning expertise
- Software to make everything run like a dream
2. Fund a Scholarship
What sucks more than almost anything else is telling a worthy multipod that we can’t give them a discount without losing more money on the event.
For context, early bird tickets were $499 and regular tickets were $699.
If you’re feeling especially generous and want to pass along funds for a scholarship, that would be seriously groovy!
Tell our team what you have in mind, a budget to play with to make a struggling multipotentialite’s day, or what you can give to make sure we have enough money to offset our costs.
3. Buy More Than One Ticket
This is a tricky one.
We don’t know when and where the next ETC is. We’d love to do it between May-October 2025, possibly in Minneapolis again since it was such a beautiful space and city.
However, we’re exploring Bend, Oregon and are open to other locations.
For now, we assume the ticket prices to simply break even are somewhere between $400-700.
Are you willing to get more than one ticket for someone special or a to be determined rad human?
4. Pay More Because You Can
Maybe you can’t buy more than one ticket which are tentatively priced between $400-700. But could you intentionally pay more for that one ticket than what we charge?
It’s kinda like a pay-what-you-can with a minimum amount built in.
5. Offer Your Skills and Services
You don’t have to be an expert drone operator with serious marketing chops to contribute (hey, Christine Lozada!).
Maybe you have:
- A head for tech and can build something better than a Glide app to show event participants and experiences.
- A heart of a champion and could challenge yourself to contact 20 people who might want to go to a future ETC.
- Nimble hands that could create some classy swag or marketing materials.
- Connections up the wazoo to hook up your event organizers with potential (non-sponsor and commercial-free) partnerships.
6. Something Else?
Do you own a nifty event space we could use? Do you have chef-level skills you want to offer to your fellow participants?
This is a catch-all because, if we know one thing about multipotentialites, you constantly surprise the sweet bajesus out of us!
Where to from Here?
Much of where we go – literally and figuratively – and when we do it depends on support from you. Yeah, you. 🙂
We can think of at least three options at this point:
- Option 1: We’ll rally and cover the cost to create the same wonderful event like Year 1 and 2.
- Option 2: We’ll shrink or adjust, but there will be tradeoffs. That might mean less help from Vanessa, a smaller or no Welcome Party, turning away people who want to participate because the venue is too small, fewer cultural options ’round town, worse transportation options to and around the event, etc.
- Option 3: We love you and we’ll still be friends. But there will be no ETC in 2025. But we’d promote and encourage you to meet-up at events like NeuroDiversion 2025, Camp Indie, Apryl Schlueter’s in-person awesomeness, John McKenzie’s A Curiosity Trip, FinCon, TravelCon, and so on.
Where You Come In ...
We don’t have a specific deadline to make the next ETC happen. But, uh, sooner is better than later … with your help, of course!
We made a bunch of suggestions and you might be leaning towards one or more. Want to explore some together?
You can:
- Email the team and propose something(s).
- Set up some time to brainstorm with Joel.
- Call/text Vanessa or Joel (if we’re cool like that) and just get down to bizness.
- Send us a note however you want that says: “You folks are fantastic, but I can’t do anything to help.” Kind words are always appreciated.
- Something else? Maybe you’re picking up on a theme here? We like surprises and unexpected offers!
One way or another, we need a heapin’ helping of support and guidance to make another ETC happen. Thanks in advance for your role in it! <3