Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Blogtacular : My first blogging conference...

I've been slower than many posting about last weekend's Blogtacular conference and its partly been because my brain has needed the time to slow down and absorb it all. 

Despite 8 years of blogging (can that really be so?) before Friday night I had barely met another blogger and then suddenly, incredibly I was surrounded by hundreds of them. Faces I knew well that belonged to people I'd never met. It's a very strange sensation.


The weekend was packed full of information, inspiration and calls to arms. Mostly I realised the incredible bloggers who took to the podiums and held us spellbound with stories of their growing empires, were not in fact bloggers, but creative business people with portfolio careers bound together or ignited by their blogs.

I spent a long time thinking "this event is something else hiding under the banner of blogging" but I couldn't quite work what it was. Women reinventing their careers? Freelancing for creatives? Female empowerment? There's a movement here which I can't put my finger on.

Though I enjoyed the photo walk, it was in fact the session on videography with Xanthe Berkerley which had me hooked. I've skirted around film making for many years, dabbling in it for work and toying in it for play, but I need to do more and I have ideas I want to follow up.  

Oh yes we are! #blogtacular

I made some great new friends and finally put faces to online names, including meeting Nina of Tabiboo (below) whom I first connected with about 4 years ago when I was in Cyprus... and she remembered! Also Carina of City Coastal Life & Style who picked up my goodie bag from the Next event last October and the lovely Emma Davies who I met via the Blogtacular Twitter chat.


On Saturday night  I crawled back to Sussex laden down with goodie bags and with my ears ringing and my mind spinning, craving my own bed and the stillness of the countryside but all the while ready to book again next year.

Will you be joining us too?

Some of the images in this post have been kindly provided by Mollie Makes


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11 comments:

  1. OMG I wish I were there too! I was so very tempted but it was gonna cost a fortune. I have decided I will definitely do it next year!! Oh yes I will! Looks like you all had a great time and I wished I could've met so many bloggers and creatives in one space. x

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  2. I saw you were there and followed you on twitter, but I didn't know exactly which one you were! Would have loved to have met you. It was a brilliant conference wasn't it? x

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  3. Looks like a great event, wish I had been there too

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  4. It was great to meet you too, the first of many meetings I hope (ps can you change the link to the other blog??)

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    1. I didn’t know which one to link to, you are multifaceted! (or multi-layered!) but I shall change it now! :-)

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  5. Looks amazing. I wish I had gone! I went to BlogCamp and am going to Britmums, didn't think I could push my luck to a 3rd x

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    1. I'm seriously considering Britmums now after dipping my toe in the water! Trying to see if I can get a sponsor which would obviously sway it! :-)

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  6. Next year there should be name tags so that I can find you ;) So bummed I missed meeting you at Blogtacular. It was such a full fun packed weekend, right? Thanks for the nice recap, Clare!

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  7. I can't believe I didn't mange to find you to say hi in person but looking back on all the crazy wonderful that it was perhaps that's not the biggest surprise! It was just the best weekend wasn't it - and after all the fabulous things I hear about Xanthe's video talk I'm really looking forward to seeing the recording on the virtual conference!

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  8. I'm a newbie to blogging so I found out about the event too late. All the bloggers who went said it was a great event. Next year I definitely can't miss it!

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  9. Your pictures are fab! Thank you for being part of the very first Blogtacular x

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