Exploring CIPD Festival of Work: Key Moments, Inspiring Insights, and Top Takeaways!

Earlier this month, our Head of People, Gemma Glover, and Customer Delight Manager, Steph Charlesworth, headed down to London for two-days of  discovery, inspiration, and innovation at the CIPD Festival of Work. Here, they spill the beans on the logistics of attending the event, along with some of the most inspiring moments and top takeaways... 

What’s the pitch?

The Festival of Work is a CIPD event which boasts over 100+ sessions across 6 stages, focused on everything from L&D, Employee Experience and wellbeing, to ESG, Internal Comms and ED&I. This focus is, ‘shaping the future of work and empowering people to thrive with purpose.’ 

There are a huge range of topics and themes to dip in and out of. 

Who’s it for?

In a break with the usual format of attendees purchasing a ticket to attend, the event was offered for free, with no restrictions around job roles. This resulted in 13,000 registrations and around 10,000 professionals attending over the course of both days. It definitely felt busier than previous years. The majority of talks were aimed at  People Professionals, those in L&D and HR. 

Getting in

We arrived on the first morning just as the doors were opening, so there was quite a queue. There were no barriers set up, so a self assembled queue formed and swirled, but it wasn’t clear where to join. A bit of a free-for-all ensued.

Thankfully, the FOW team were swiftly processing everyone, so things moved along pretty quickly. It was much quicker on day two, presumably as most people already had their badges printed so you could walk right to the front. There were multiple cloakrooms which helped to prevent more queuing and checking in small bags only cost £2 - bargain! Everything was texted to you, so you didn’t have to worry about losing your little ticket. 

I love the area of Kensington. Walking to the venue from our hotel was very calm and quiet, but with the continued works on the Olympia venue itself, it wasn’t entirely clear which entrance to use. The signposting they had in place definitely took you the long way round (perhaps to try to minimise some of the queuing?). It’s always worth planning in advance so you know where you’re headed rather than relying on local signage. 

The venue

Inside Olympia, the building is really beautiful, with high ceilings and historical industrial ironworks. Unfortunately, this also means that with the volume of attendees, there was a lot of general noise and at times, a booming echo.

The event leant into the festival vibe;  stages had tent style ribbons to help denote the areas. If you weren’t near the front (and especially if you were standing around), it was tricky to hear the talks. There were headphones to try to mitigate this, but not enough for one each, so it was a bit of a gamble each time you moved stages. There was also a shortage of seats, which meant if you really wanted to attend a talk, you sometimes had to forego the comfort breaks and get there early. The slides were tricky for anyone at the back of the areas to read, a real shame if you were loving the insights.

The quality of the audio was really disappointing, with most of the talks we attended  plagued with microphone issues - either cutting out, being too quiet, or giving feedback. 

The location of the various stages around the venue was well signposted and were easy to find so navigating around the event was pretty straightforward.

The timings of the event worked well, with each talk generally running for 30 minutes with a 15 minute break before the next one began. The women's toilets were always a long queue, especially in the breaks, which meant that you sometimes sacrificed a good position for the next talk. We sacrificed one or two talks for a longer break with reduced queuing times - less frustrating than trying to rush around. 

Agenda & speakers

We’d meticulously planned out our time prior to the event, adding events to gmail. Across both days,  some of the events were cancelled or moved and our calendars didn’t reflect the changes. 

Early doors, you were invited to scan a QR code to access the agenda and plan your day within their app. It would’ve been handy to have this earlier; presumably the changes would have been updated there. 

Having got the hang of getting to the talks early for the preferred speakers, we made the call to grab our lunch and sit at the main stage an hour before Katherine Ryan’s keynote speech. This turned out to be a great decision as the seats filled up pretty quickly. Sensibly, the keynote speeches across both days were also streamed across all the stages rather than competing with other talks, so there was a choice to see it streamed if you weren’t able to get a seat at the main stage. It wasn’t quite the same as seeing it “live” but a great alternative to ease some of the congestion. 

All that said, the variety of speakers, subjects and formats was wonderful, and we took a huge volume of notes and ideas away to ruminate on. The value we took away, especially for a free event, was considerable.

Exhibitors

We weren’t hunting for anything so didn’t spend much time with exhibitors. Like last year, it seemed like the majority were offering people platforms and solutions (naturally). We felt very respected by sales teams and free to roam around and start conversations on our terms.

Something we’ve noticed becoming more prolific is the number of stands offering free food and drink to entice you to visit them - there were sugary treats aplenty. 

Food & drink

I’m sure you can probably see a theme emerging by this point, but when it came to food options, there was always at least a 10 minute queue, no matter the time of day. The upside was that there was a variety of offerings, not just the same generic beige you usually find.  

We tried the Plant Kitchen, ordering great big, bright  salads. It was really  nice to be able to eat fresh. Most of the sweet treat choices were also vegan and/or gluten free, which was great to see.

There were also a few popular cafes and coffee shops just outside the venue. Although it’s all change for next year, so we won’t linger on the details!

Top tips

• Set your agenda in advance (even if they do change it on you)
• Get the app, and check everything is still to plan
• Get there early and have a quick walk around to understand where places/stages are
• Find the secret toilets which are more out of the way
• Take snacks which will keep you full and energetic
• If it’s free again, sit down early if you really care about it

Next year, the event is taking place 12th-13th June at Excel. 

Whether it will be free again is not yet known. We experienced the same high quality of talks and speakers as last year when we paid. There are evidently pros and cons to charging. Removing barriers makes it so much more accessible, especially for start-ups, small businesses, freelancers, the generally curious and of course, any people professional struggling to get buy-in for the costs. But the sheer volume of attendees made it quite stressful and less comfortable.

Our perspective is clear - if the CIPD are going to continue offering a free FOW, they need to be able to curate an experience which can handle the scale. 

Let’s hope this is what they’re aiming for with the ExCel.