work with us
design your gathering with intention
who it’s for
you're not an event logistics company. you're a practitioner, researcher, or community organiser who cares deeply about your sector — and who has also been tasked with creating a conference for it.
conference design is one of many things on your plate. you've tried to make it participatory. but something's still missing. participants say they enjoyed it — but you're not sure what they actually took away, or whether it changed how they work.
you know your sector can't afford gatherings that land as "fine."
your event might bring together 50 people or 500 — what matters is that you're trying to make it count. either way, good design makes that possible — and that's what we're here for.
what we offer
gathering well works at three levels, depending on what your event needs and what your team has capacity for.
advisor
focused, on-demand consultations.
you have a specific challenge and need expert input to work through it
book a session, bring your challenge. we spend an hour working through it — asking the right questions, offering direct guidance, and giving you something concrete to act on. you leave with clarity. no ongoing commitment required, and no minimum number of sessions. come back when you need to.
we work together to develop the learning architecture and session designs that will make your gathering do what you need it to do.
a collaborative process across multiple sessions, from first principles through to a design your team can deliver.
we begin with a discovery phase. conversations with your team to understand your event, your audience, your aims, and what's not been working. this is where we build the foundation.
from there we move into architecture: defining the major building blocks of your event — inspiration, innovation, engagement, practice, reflection and the right balance between them. some clients conclude the work here, with a clear structural blueprint their team can build from.
for those who want to go further, we move into full session design. a detailed run sheet for each session, with practical considerations, activities, and any artefacts or materials your team will need. we can also develop the invitation and communications for your event, so the experience begins before anyone walks in the door.
optional from there: on-site coordination support during the event itself, and a post-event team debrief with design notes to carry forward into next year.
each stage builds on the last. you decide how far to take it.
muted stages signal additional available options
design partner
before we design, we clarify the purpose, the audience, and the longer arc for organisations with long-term ambition.
a longer term and deeper collaborative engagement to ensure alignment between your upcoming event and the overall vision and contribution you want to make.
we begin ahead of the design work to make the design possible.
some gatherings carry unresolved questions that sit beneath the surface: what this event is actually trying to achieve, who it is genuinely for, how it is distinctly positioned in its field, and whether it has a sustainable future. when those questions haven't been answered. or when the people responsible for the event don't yet agree on the answers, design work built on top of them won't hold.
the strategy phase works with your team to surface and resolve those questions. we clarify purpose and positioning, define the audience and intended outcomes, and develop a longer-term direction for the gathering and the work it serves. this becomes the foundation everything else is built from.
from there, the process follows the same stages as design partner: architecture, session design, communications, and optional implementation support and debrief.
this is the option for organisations building something with genuine long-term ambition — and who are ready to do the thinking that makes that possible.
design & strategy
