What we learned producing a conference people actually wanted to attend

Words by Dana Brown, Director of BonBon

I’ve spent enough time around conferences to know the usual warning signs. 

A registration desk under pressure before the doors open. Coffee running low by 10am. Sponsors wondering where the foot traffic is. Attendees quietly answering emails from the back row. 

Victory Lap was built to avoid all of that. 

Over 20 weeks, our team worked alongside Sports Design Australia to launch the inaugural summit from scratch. Two days, 350 delegates, 19 speakers from around the world, dozens of suppliers, partners and moving parts. Plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong. 

In the days afterwards, I found myself paying particular attention to what people kept talking about. 

The speakers received glowing feedback across both days, but plenty of the post-event conversation was about everything happening around them: the headshot studio that had a constant stream all day, the bug rolls at lunch, the merch customisation station… 

Those details ended up telling us a lot about what makes a conference enjoyable to attend. 

One of the busiest parts of Victory Lap was a professional headshot studio. 

It was a simple enough idea: a photographer, backdrop and lighting, with attendees able to walk away with a new professional headshot.

Unwanted FC’s live customisation station had a similar pull. Attendees could create something personal rather than picking up another piece of branded merchandise to take home. 

Both worked because there was a reason to participate. You left with something useful or something that felt like yours. 

It’s something I’d happily steal from ourselves for the next event. Give people something they genuinely want and you don’t have to work particularly hard to convince them to get involved. 

Conference catering often gets treated as an operational task: make sure there’s enough food, cover the dietary requirements and get everyone fed before the next session. 

We spent a lot more time thinking about it. 

Working with Wine & Dine’m, we developed a menu inspired by stadium food and sports culture, then had some fun with it. The bug rolls and giant pretzels became unexpected favourites. 

People discussed lunch between sessions. They photographed it. They posted about it. 

I couldn’t tell you what I ate at most conferences I’ve attended three years ago. I suspect most people are the same. At Victory Lap, the food became another part of the personality of the event – and another thing for people to talk about. 

Some of the best partner integrations at Victory Lap were also among the simplest. 

Merlo kept people caffeinated. Rally Social brought energy to the precinct. Unwanted FC gave people something personal to take home. 

They worked because each partner had a genuine role to play in the day. Their presence made sense and gave attendees something to interact with. 

For me, that’s a far more interesting starting point for sponsorship than working out where another logo can go. 

One piece of attendee feedback appeared again and again: people wanted their names on their lanyards. 

It sounds almost comically small after 20 weeks spent coordinating an international speaker program, technical production, catering, suppliers and activations. But once we heard it, it made complete sense. 

You spend two days introducing yourself, meeting people and trying to remember names. Having those names printed clearly on credentials makes that experience just a little easier. 

It was a good reminder that attendees experience an event very differently to the people producing it. Something that occupies five minutes of a planning meeting can affect hundreds of interactions on the day. 

That one is firmly on the list for next time. 

Much of event production happens in places attendees will never see. 

At Victory Lap, we were coordinating venue requirements, catering deliveries, technical rehearsals, partner installations, speaker presentations, furniture suppliers, custom builds and live event operations simultaneously. 

When all of that works, nobody notices. 

Nobody comes up after a conference to congratulate you on an excellent loading dock schedule. They notice the headliner walking onto stage on time, their coffee being ready between sessions and the next activation already being open when they get there. 

After 20 weeks of planning, there’s something deeply satisfying about watching hundreds of people move through an event without ever needing to know what’s happening behind the curtain. 

The Brisbane Lions Premiership Cups drew crowds all day. So did the 3D Instagram studio, the outdoor Pickleball court and the t-shirt gun. 

The conference could have run without any of them. I’m glad it didn’t. 

They gave people reasons to stop between sessions, talk to each other or try something they hadn’t expected to find at a conference. 

We spend a lot of time talking about how to generate social content around events. Victory Lap was a useful reminder that the best place to start is the event itself. Give people something they genuinely want to photograph or share and, more often than not, they will. 

Five months of planning went into Victory Lap. By the time the doors opened, our run sheets accounted for almost everything. 

What they couldn’t account for was which moments people would latch onto. 

Some were big and obvious, like getting your photo with the Brisbane Lions Premiership Cups. Others were as simple as a really good lunch, leaving with a headshot you actually liked or wishing your name had been printed on your lanyard. 

That’s probably what I’ll carry into the next event: people notice when you’ve thought about their experience. 

And they definitely notice when you haven’t. 

Planning an event? We’d be happy to share what we’ve learned from producing conferences, launches and major events across Queensland and beyond.