This definitely seems to be the year for conferences for FTD Digital! If we’re not attending conferences for award nominations (and usually winning!), we’re out at conferences meeting existing partners or making connections with new partners!
This was my first “flying solo” conference and I was slightly apprehensive as my colleagues are so great at sorting transport from airports, to and from evening events etc that it’s one less thing for me to worry about for our usual “hectic conference agenda.” I have only ever had to concern myself with taxi booking when I’m ready to go back to the hotel to sleep and leave my colleagues out partying until the early hours.
But at SBC Summit Malta (formerly Casino Beats), I had no need to be apprehensive about travel arrangements, as the week just flowed from start to end, with my pre-booked taxi waiting at the airport to take me to my hotel. I cant say the same for the traffic “flow” though as that was pretty much gridlocked 24/7.
The welcome drinks on the conference opening night were held on the top floor (as you would expect in Malta) of the infamous Hugos Roof Top Terrace. This was a great first evening meeting spot, with amazing views of St. George’s Bay and beyond. Due to the proximity of the infinity pool and small walk way around the edge of the pool; getting close to take scenic photos of the sunset was impossible, unless you fancied a cool off in the pool first.
The conference itself was relatively small compared to the likes of SBC Summit Lisbon (which we’ll be attending in September), but not small on quality. A great descriptive word I heard for the conference was “Boutique” and this fits very well.
With the air-conditioning struggling to keep us cool by lunch time on both days, we all found it more “comfortable” to move all our meetings outside on the street in the shade against the high rise hotels, or back in Hugo’s roof top terrace bar. Again, back to the gridlock traffic, it was always a toss-up between being warm in the boutique conference but can hear all of your conversation, or being outside in “fresher air” but the continuous horn honking to dampen out most of the conversation.
Thankfully, the conference was situated within about 150 yards of all the evening networking events, which meant we didn’t have to rely on public transport getting through the gridlocked traffic to take us elsewhere. I believe there was one scheduled event which did require transport, but SBC kindly put on minibuses to take everyone to the “Infinity” party at the Aria Complex, which had Galantis headlining. I opted to stay local and pass on this event, but I did hear it was an amazing night and I shall be going next year (maybe).
Out of all the evenings, the two that stand out the most in my memory, was the first night, at St. Paul’s Bay, where I got to witness the most incredible sunset over the Ionian Sea. The company that evening with Statsdrone was equally memorable.
The second “stand out” evening, was at Raffael Restaurant with the team from Active Win, where the terrace area gave us incredible views of Spinola Bay. The food was incredible, but what made it extra special was the view of the Strawberry Moon setting over the bay, looking like something out of a film!!
The team at SBC Events did a fab job in keeping us all informed with the events day and night, keeping everything all in one place, meaning every day just flowed seamlessly with no stress of booking transport etc. I look forward to next year!
