NEXT22: making the most of the conference

NEXT22 is nearly upon us. It’s live, in person, and in the heart of Hamburg. Here’s how to make the most of your two days with us.

If NEXT22 is your first NEXT, there’s something you need to know. It’s not a conference like so many others. It’s… different. If you join us at the main stage in Schmidt’s Tivoli, you’ll get that picture pretty quickly. And musically… 😉

In fact, NEXT has three main phases throughout the day:

  • The conference
  • The deep dives
  • The after-show

Let’s explore how they work, and how to make the most of your time with us…

Curtains up: the conference in the theatre

At too many conferences, you disappear into a weird hermetic bubble, stuck in a conference centre or hotel, cut off from the surrounding city. NEXT22 is not one of those conferences. We’re embedded deep in the heart of Hamburg, as the (genuinely) globally famous Reeperbahn Festival happens around us.

In fact, you won’t be going into a conference centre at all. As befits a conference amidst a music festival, our venues are in places of entertainment: theatres, clubs and bars.

NEXT22’s main stage is in Schmidt’s Tivoli theatre. And you’ll get the full theatre experience, with balconies, and chairs around tables on the ground floor. On Thursday, we’re also claiming the theatre next door, the Schmidt Theatre, to explore the Metaverse, Web3 and related issues with a fantastic panel of speakers.

Which is for you? Check the agenda!

Afternoon: exploring Hamburg and new ideas

However, those theatres need their spaces back by the evening to prepare for their performances. So, in one of the most distinctive (and my favourite) parts of NEXT22, the conference scatters around Hamburg — largely around the St Pauli area — for a series of workshops and deep dives on a range of subjects.

We use a number of venues around the Reeperbahn area. You can attend events in anything from the rightly legendary “dive bar”-style Washington Bar or the craft beer & pizza pub Baby Goat Barn (where you’ll catch Martin and I talking about what we learnt while writing Next Level CMO), to venues like Gaga with breathtaking views across the city — and down onto Reeperbahn itself.

We’ve also got a networking hub and events spaces throughout the event at the wonderfully named Laserloft and the stylish Gaga. Or, if you’re of a more social and nautical bent, you can join one of the networking cruises that will be making the most of this great maritime city.

The Show’s over. Long live the show.

The problem with many conferences is that they tend to peter out. I remember sitting in a Paris event venue for the closing moments of one of the much-missed LeWeb conferences, and slowly realising that there were only a few dozen people left in the vast hall. The majority of the several thousand who attended had already slipped away into the night. Going out with a whimper, not a bang…

There’s no danger of that at NEXT22. Sure, if you want to slip away and head home, or into the delights of the Reeperbahn Festival, you easily can. But we think we can tempt you to stay with after-show drinks and parties to round off your time in Hamburg with fun and networking.

NEXT Online

And, of course, the show will be going on online, too. We’ll have livestreams from the main stage on both days, videos of sessions afterwards, and liveblog posts of many of the events right here on the blog.

And you can join in too, using the hashtags #next22 and #hugthesystem on your social networks of choice.

See you in Hamburg!