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ProBlogger Event 2014 – Wrap Up

Posted By Darren Rowse 23rd of September 2014 General 0 Comments

It is hard to believe but the 2014 ProBlogger Training event is already last month and if I’m honest with you – I’m still reeling from it a little.

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What an amazing two days!

This was our second year of holding the event on the Gold Coast in Queensland Australia but it was the first time we’d had over 500 attendees all in the one room.

When I came up with the idea for the first PBEVENT back in 2010 I envisaged a small group of bloggers gathering around a board table in a meeting room somewhere but had no idea of what would happen to the event – or the Aussie blogosphere in the following five years.

Both have exploded – in a good way!

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This year’s event took a good 11 months to plan for – with the help of an amazing team. We had 550 attendees, over 30 speakers (four internationals and the rest from around Australia), three new niche networking events, three new ‘accelerator’ workshops, a special partner event with Aweber, and one crazy networking party (with a nautical theme).

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Our international speakers this year were amazing. Pat Flynn, Rand Fishkin, Geraldine DeRuiter and Chris Ducker all made the big trip down under and all completely brought it to their sessions – delivering high quality presentations and really practical advice.

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Our Aussie speakers also blew our socks off with their storytelling, advice and generosity.

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The Australian blogosphere has continue to grow and mature in the last 12 months and the spirit in the room over our two days of training was incredible. This year almost two thirds of attendees were with us for their first time, most of whom were in their first year of blogging. Something is happening in Australia!

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Surprise and Delights

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This year we did a few of surprise and delight moments through the conference. Virgin Australia gave three attendees a total of 800,000 velocity points, Olympus Australia gave away their amazing OMD camera, and Tourism and Events Queensland gave one attendee the cost of getting to and attending our conference back to them. Oh – and then there was the free massages and coffee from Bupa and the networking events from L’Oreal (where I got made up with smokey eyes – see below), Annie Sloan and Pure Harvest.

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We also surprised those attendees who have been to all five PBEVENTS with free tickets to next year’s event, a couple of attendees with a trip to Melbourne to spend the day with the ProBlogger team to help take their blog to the next level, and another with a date night for her and her husband at a hotel in Perth along with free tickets to next years PBEVENT in Perth and next year’s main event.

We also had opportunity spend time with The Reach Foundation and hear from one of their wonderful young crew members to tell us about the work they do with thousands of Aussie young people.

I also had a few moments of surprise – one being on the last night when my team all appeared at drinks with Darren Rowse Tattoos!

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Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things

PBEVENT is fast becoming the highlight of my year each year – I love seeing the progression in our attendees from one year to another. Numerous bloggers who I met back in 2010-11 as brand new bloggers are now full time bloggers and launching amazing projects.

The theme of my opening keynote this year is that blogging is something that enables normal, ordinary people to do extraordinary things. In the Aussie blogosphere (as it is around the world) this is something I’ve seen hundreds of times.

In the last 12 months alone we’ve seen bloggers launching books and eBooks:

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Launching businesses and training courses:

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Experimenting with Kickstarter and Pozible campaigns:

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Developing Apps and running events:

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And that’s just scratching the surface.

Bigger than One Direction and Football

Our attendees certainly like to use social media!

PBEVENT this year knocked AFL football, Rugby and the birthday of one of the OneDirection group off the number-one trending perch on Twitter for two and a half days nationally in Australia.

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Over the two days of the event the #PBEVENT hashtag had around 15,000 tweets with over 47,000,000 impressions (over the month around the event this is closer to 80,000,000 impressions), over 3000 instagrams and since the event we’ve seen more blog posts written about the event than we can keep up with.

Following are just some of the blog posts we’ve found that give you a speaker/attendee perspective on what it’s like to attend a PBEVENT.

But before I get to those posts – I want to say another huge thank you to the team who helped run this year’s event. To Jasmin, Nicole and Laney who returned this year to form our core team. To those around them who put in many hours including Caroline, Liz, Shayne, Stacey, Yvonne, Cheryl, Jade, Brooke, Grove, Nathalie, Martine, Louisa Claire and to the many others who pitched in and lent a hand throughout the event.

Here’s just some of the team behind this year’s event pictured int he Olympus booth at our nautical networking party (yes, that’s me as Jack Sparrow). See more shots from this Photo Booth here.

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All our speakers and panelists – thanks so much for your time and generosity.

Also a huge thanks to our sponsors (all mentioned above) who helped to keep our event as what I hear over and over again is one of the most affordable and value-packed events in Australia.

Lastly to our attendees this year and to the wider Australian Blogosphere – your support and encouragement drive us on to keep improving PBEVENT. As I said in closing this year’s event we’re already planning the 2015 events (yes there will be more than one).

We’re hoping to run a full day event early in 2015 in Perth and another multi day event at a similar time next year (location to be announced) as well as some smaller meet up events in other capital cities early in the year.

What Our Attendees Thought About this Year’s Event

As promised above – here are just some of the blog posts we’ve found about this year’s event from attendees and speakers. Thanks to Jade Craven for helping me get this list together! Enjoy!

 

From Presenters:

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. It would be cool if Darren were to show up at a future Affiliate Summit event. Perhaps aspiring bloggers and affiliate marketers wouldn’t be so lazy if they saw and heard Darren speak live at an AS event in the United States.

  2. Hows it going Darren,

    I remember getting talked to some event some time ago but never got attached to it, because it involved spending to make money, but an event where every one is a blogger just trying to soak in information or share some knowledge, is a once in a lifetime chance. Hope to see many more events like this, even the giveaways seem like something to look forward to. Good luck with the next event, i bet it’ll take months to plan this one out as well.

  3. Would the next event be considered to be shown live online? You had over 500 attendees, but if you had some exclusive viewers from the computer to watch as well. Just a thought cause some people might not be able to reach the event in person.

    • Jade Craven says: 09/23/2014 at 10:47 pm

      I’m a team member. We actually did that in 2013, had live audio options. It added another layer of complexity to an already busy couple of days so it was decided to remove the option for this year. I’m not sure if it will change in the future.

    • thanks Jean – it’s a fun event to be a part of. As for a virtual ticket – we did offer one in previous years but felt that putting it together was a bit of a distraction for our team and took away our attention from serving the attendees we had in person. As a result we took the decision not to do one this year.

  4. It was a fantastic event Darren and a great one to be a part of too.

    There is plenty of reading for me to get through above, it certainly will be great to read what everyone else got out of it and also reliving the moments again.

    Thanks again for a wonderful event to all the Problogger Team!

  5. Great wrap up of a fantastic event! Thank you so much to the entire PBEVENT team for making first timers like myself feel so welcome. It was an incredible two days and I can’t wait for #PBEVENT2015!

  6. Thank you Darren and the whole PBEvent team for an incredible event! Every aspect was spot on. You’ve cultivated such an inspiring, talented and friendly community. It was a pleasure to participate and I’m sure everyone else is just as excited for PBEvent 2015. Congrats and keep raising the bar!

    Cheers — Hunter

  7. Hi Darren, from your write up it sounds like it was a great event and I only wish that I could have been a part of it!

  8. Darren, what a brilliant team and event you’ve created. Thank you for all the work, over all 11 months. I’m so glad I signed up and came along as a newbie blogger. And wow! What a thrill to see my post linked here. Chuffed.

  9. Thanks for including my post in the wrap-up! It was a great weekend and I look forward to next years event (and any other ones that may come up in the meantime).

  10. It was my first PB event and boy what an intro! Huge thank you to Darren and the team for putting on such a spectacular event. I got to meet, listen to and connect with so many wonderful and inspirational people and I’ve taken away so much valuable information that I can take forward with me. Here’s to next year’s events…!

  11. Was a fantastic event to be a part of, both as a team member and someone that was trying to absorb as much knowledge as possible. Plus I loved being able to return to Queensland! Was definitely one of the highlights of the year. I came home on such a high. x

  12. A great time was had by all – thank you!

  13. Darren, you put together a great team to help you run this great event. It’s amazing how that small dream has exploded over the past five years!
    Thanks for everything you and your team put it, all the long hours, late nights, emails, calls, frustrations, fixes, going above and beyond – the beauty of what you pulled off is that nobody saw anything other than a really professionally put together event. That’s impressive work!
    Thanks so much for including my blog link here – that feels quite cheeky to me, as I’m totally in the newbie category – but guess what, I’m a blogger! I belong too!

  14. Thank you once again Darren. It’s so good having you as a blogging mentor via this event and all that you do. You’ve had such an impact on so many of us!

  15. Love this wrap up Darren. Thanks for creating such a wonderful atmosphere and being so inspiring.

    Nic

  16. Darren and team – thanks for yet another inspiring, informative, friendly and FUN event! And also a huge thank you for featuring my “7 Days to Gluten Free” program in your slides. What a buzz to see it on the big screen at PB! Looking forward to next year’s event already. Well done for bringing the blogging community together and for creating an atmosphere of collaboration rather than competition :)

  17. This event was very inspiring to action. I think in the future you can expect even better.

  18. I didn’t have a chance to attend, but it looks like you guys put on quite a show. I will be sure to attend next year, I wouldn’t miss it.

  19. Hi Darren,

    It was quite hard to attend your show this year but hope I’ll surely gonna attend yours in next year.It’s always worth attending your show.

    Thanks

  20. I’ve done more to sort out my blog in the past month than I’ve done in the past year. THANK YOU Problogger! x

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