Where CogX got their next 10 years right, and where it got it wrong

Personal review on the fast growing tech festival to hit London. It gets a 6.8 out of 10.

CogX Festival for 2023 gets a 6.8 out of 10 from yours truly. This article was originally published on 19th September 2023.

If you know me well enough, anytime I go to a tech conference, festival, event, or anything lasting more than half a day, I like to give it a score. Up until now, it’s been for internal, personal reference. Now because of this newsletter, you’ll be getting them shared with you and a breakdown of why I gave it that score.

There are things that I loved and things that I was not a fan of about this year’s CogX Festival at the 02 Arena London. And there are also things that they do that I find odd that don’t make sense for why the team thought it would be a great idea.

But first I want to give a quick overview of my time there and what my second CogX festival experience was like. What I do want to clarify is that this is my honest, personal review of what I THINK. You might be thinking this conference is a solid 10 and I’d love to know in the comments why. And you might also think it’s a 0.1 which again I’d love to know in the comments why.

To put context to my review, I didn’t attend all 3 days. But I’m glad I didn’t. And coincidentally everyone I knew who was going only attended 1 or 2 days with all either being there on the first or second day.

Which gets me thinking why is it on the last day of a conference, it’s always half empty? If I’m ever kindly offered a speaking gig on the last day of an event that has been going 2 or 3 days, I expect, and get ready, to be talking to a room at 20-30% capacity than it was on day 1.

Actually thinking about it, the only tech event I’ve attended where it didn’t get significantly quieter on the final day was the Web Summit in Lisbon. Or at least to me it still seemed to be buzzing with people drinking from the Super Bock vans positioned right outside the exhibition rooms up until the event closed.

For starters, I definitely can’t justify the prices for tickets above standard such as £2,500 for a gold ticket, £3,000 for an investor ticket, or £5,000 for a platinum ticket. If you were to get the gold ticket, you can’t attend all the sessions for starters because the schedule for each stage overlaps. And you’re paying for access to sit in an All Bar One upstairs where you still have to buy your own food and drinks.

You can Whatsapp the person(s) you want to meet and chill in the downstairs section and save yourself some dolla. Saying that you might bump into someone in the gold lounge that becomes a sale with you seeing £1 million come into your business bank account. So who knows, they have the data and maybe that happens regularly to make that price justifyable.

I do think the standard ticket is worth spending the money to go. Especially if you are prepared for your time at the conference, book meetings, and want to educate yourself or your team on tech topics. But I’d suggest you get tickets while the 75% sale for 2024 is on. Because I still think £450 odd is a lot for this type of experience.

The morning of the day I went was a decent start. Had Reid Hoffman doing a fireside conversation on his new business swiftly followed by Mustafa Suleyman giving details on how Pi.ai is built differently from other chatbots. However, the first annoyance was how you had to leave the main room after these two sessions for a lunch break.

Which is when I ended up in a fairly full press lounge. Made me think what they were all doing if they had just missed two of the biggest names out of all the speakers, in my opinion, to write about in the tech sector at the moment. But I swiftly moved away from that train of thinking after getting myself a cold pint of Guinness.

This activity got me a few looks from people in the room having a pint at pretty much spot on 12 midday. Wasn’t sure if it was looking at me as i’d been the first mover to make it acceptable for everyone else to order a drink or whether it was disgust to be drinking while I was supposed to be reporting on a tech conference.

This was swiftly followed by another pint of Guinness down in the main bar with a PR company representative behind one of the exhibitors at the conference. That’s one of the things I didn’t love about the conference and note further down, is that it was so big, it was hard to meet anyone that just wanted to have a chat about tech with no agenda of selling or pitching something.

And after that, I went to a fireside with Steven Bartlett and Fearne Cotton. I have zero idea what they were doing on stage speaking. If that was me targetting a tech audience, would see their speaker fees as a waste of resources.

Although Charlie and the team might have got a deal to get them speaking for free in which case, not too bad of a decision. But still, this was marketed as a tech conference and I’ve got two people talking about wellness and mental toughness with nothing that I can remember relating to tech.

Not saying it’s not important. But I looked at it that it was a way for CogX to advertise that they have celebrity speakers, with another example being Stephen Fry, who has little relevance to hi-tech topics to boost sales. When what they said can be heard at length for free on god knows how many podcasts or YouTube vids.

Overall I thought the logistics were a bit shit, the layout of the conference was huge for not enough attendees, and didn’t get anywhere near the takeaways or insight I would have wanted if I was spending £2,500 on a gold ticket.

Although you might be reading this thinking it’s not a great score, it’s actually not a bad one for a tech conference. Or sorry, festival. Especially one of this size. It’s always great to share with you and remind myself that the event lived up to expectations. And where it didn’t. Let’s go into detail on how I’ve ended up with a score of 6.8 out of 10.

What I loved about CogX

So everything I loved about CogX. And there is a fair bit to look at that definitely makes it good enough to spend on a Standard Festival Pass to see what you think for yourself in person.

Speakers

Although I gave Steven and Fearne a hard time further up, overall the speakers were brilliant. You get a number of the best on the tech scene at the moment and can learn from their thinking in a mixture of different stages that each have a different focus or priority for the audience.

Granted, some of the people who are the best in business are terrible speakers. And who CogX selects as speakers undoubtedly will vary from year to year which will make certain years better or worse than others.

I don’t think the keynotes, panels, and fireside chats at any point went into enough depth on the topics. And I was close to putting this in the category of things I don’t like as well. But it’s a conference and they are on a time limit with a tight agenda. And I do think it’s up to attendees such as myself to follow up on further independent research or info to explore that topic more if it’s of interest.

It’s great if you’re someone who wants overview examples of ways tech can be applied in workflows or your business, stats, and trends about the current tech landscape across different industries, or future outlooks of what tech might be able to do for us.

But if you want to go into the nitty gritty of these topics, it’s best to stick to conferences such as Developer Week or go to customer conferences that are organised by brands. This way you can really understand how the product is used, success cases, disasters, faster and better implementation etc.

You got to hear from people across different tracks alongside people I consider to be mavericks in the tech scene. Reid Hoffman, Mustafa Suleyman, Stuart Russell, Jimmy Wales, Hannah Fry, Andrea Michi, Jenny Taylor, and loads more. So massive well done to them for getting some great names on the lineup as it’s definitely a part that got me wanting to go and attend.

I would love for them to do more workshops next year. Make it more intimate with the speakers or have it as a spin-off series. There were one or two that made the conversation engaging but a lot, especially the fireside chats, were just answering questions instead of engaging in a proper conversation. And I’m not a fan of prescripted stuff so wish they would consider that next time.

Dates

Last year’s dates were awful because of the cross-over it had with AI Summit and ODSC over at Tobacco Docks in south London with CogX being over at Coal Dropd Yard next to Kings Cross station.

But this year, the team got it spot on. As far as my knowledge it only clashed with a tech invite-only workshop that a friend was at over at AWS offices by Liverpool Street Station. And both are not on the same scale.

My recommendation would be to keep it same time to avoid any clashes so attendees can have full focus on being at that conference. Unlike last year where you had another two conferences and then AI live the following week.

Staff and CogX team

They have always been friendly, kind, and helpful to me and The AI Journal. Of course, you might find that bias due to the benefits we can bring to them by being a media partner. But honestly have complete respect for the kind team. And everyone I spoke to said the same that all were friendly, helpful, and polite.

Tiago and Sophie were helpful with looking at what I needed for the event, to redeem my ticket, and to show how I could get value out of the day. And any other interaction I’ve had with the wider team has been mostly positive.

All the staff, crew, and volunteers were there to help throughout the day with smiles, guidance on where to go, and generally looking like they were there to best serve you. This is brilliant and it’s great to know they have invested in making sure the staff are there to give you terrific customer service.

What I didn’t love about CogX

More this year I didn’t like about CogX festival than last year. The main thing was the location of the event and how big they made it when it really didn’t have the substance to be such a big show or festival.

Number of stages or tracks

Similar to last year’s CogX, it was spread across a number of spaces. Some much further than others. There were 10 tracks in total. Some of which unless you had a higher level ticket such as Gold or Platinum you were not able to go to.

For example, the GLS Meet the Speaker Q&A Stage. Which is a great feature, but not enough to justify the price of the ticket. Think the whole thinking behind the value of the ticket is off. Spent a fair bit of time going from one space to another. Especially as was in the flow of writing notes from the Mustafa Suleyman fireside chat to be interrupted by the 02 staff telling me I needed to leave for a lunch break.

When I was watching Reid Hoffman’s fireside conversation, it was maybe a 1/4 full of all the capacity that could have been used. And think it’s a bit underwhelming that Reid gets an audience that isn’t actually that small but because of the room he’s in, it looks small. And I will say quality 9/10 outdoes quantity. Personally think it was a big waste of space and financial resources.

Venue

Picking the 02 arena was ambitious. And I personally think it was a mistake. That place is fucking massive. And to try and fill it at capacity is a tricky task on its own, let alone for a tech conference.

What I will say and give credit to CogX for is the location is great as close to Canary Wharf, not too hard to get to on the tube from Central, good travel links across the city. Most people who fly in will likely be staying in a hotel nearby where rates are slightly better than the city center. So makes sense on those fronts, I guess.

The team decided to rent out a massive space that probably cost an arm and a leg which, in my view, was not needed. And actually made the conference seem less popular or as engaging than if it was at a smaller, intimate venue. For example, would have been much better at AI Summit at Tobacco Docks or moving it to another city.

Remember doing a lap of the 02 thinking hmmm how did they think that all this space was going to be filled? And then it wasn’t 100% clear on which places were partners or not, which areas I could get in, how to get over to the exhibition hall. Just too bloody big and was a turn-off for me.

When you’re in the 02 arena the only thing you could get was a coffee or water. And the coffee, specifically the latte I got for £3.75 was a 3.8 out of 10. Baffled me none of the other places were open to make money. But then again if the 02 admin team checked the stats on how many people are turning up, likely thought it was not worth opening the other stands.

Would like to clarify though that a lot of the problems and parts I personally didn’t like sit with the 02 arena. Not the exhibition space, if they had an arena right next to it, would have thought this is cool. And also need to be careful as I’m comparing it in parts against Web Summit as they are trying to be on the same level. Although the amount of space covered is, the overall conference size in terms of sponsors, start-ups, and attendees is not. As Web Summit is much, much bigger.

Press lounge

Wasn’t great. Any press lounge that gets put in what seemed to be the late-night disco floor of the All Bar One isn’t going to compete for the best press lounge. Especially as you’re paying for food and drinks at standard rates when you’re actually doing the conference a favor with the potential of getting people to read about the conference.

I was curious as to why City A.M. and its spin-off brand Impact A.M. had its own section that took up maybe around 1/4 of the space for its team. Not sure if that was paid for or if CogX paid them to take over that space. I think it is the latter as there was a dedicated landing page on the website with write-ups of the day and video interviews.

Even if they didn’t pay for it, I looked at the coverage and thought it was average at best. Barely any views from what I can see on YouTube vids they posted, not well storied advertorial on the site with one article literally being a transcript of an interview.

UPDATE: one of the videos on their YouTube does have 1,400+ views of one of the interviews. And full disclosure I don’t know the stats on how many people visited the landing page or read the articles they posted.

But doesn’t change my opinion that it was a poor choice of some sort of headline media partner. Next time would suggest they try and get Venture Beat or TechCrunch. Or give them some sort of free reign as will get you the tech heads and people you want compared to the audience that visits City A.M. or Impact A.M.

And then as an attendee to the press lounge had to put up with their production running in the background with an awkward speaker seeming to practice his lines in the corner for 30 minutes while seemingly staring at me while I was eating a chicken quesadilla and sipping my Guinness.

There were fake cheers to bring the main stage host Julie Sweets onto Impact A.M. channel videos. And they put their investment editor, Charlie Conchie, as the interviewer. To me, on site and in the videos he looks awkward and made me think he doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about or interviewing people about. The whole thing seemed scripted, not authentic, and rubbish. But maybe that’s what readers of City A.M. like. Each to their own in that case.

Saying that, I definitely do not look at City A.M. as a tech reporting publication. When I checked the site on Saturday last weekend it had a headline story that we were facing an Indian summer. Really bizarre choice for a tech conference.

And I’m not picking on CogX, this is the same for most conferences I go to. One in Edinburgh literally put me in a conference meeting room with some members of the event operations team and called it a press lounge. So at least it’s not as bad as that.

For comparison the best press lounge I’ve experienced is the one at Knowledge, the annual company conference for ServiceNow. Another reason they are one of my favorite companies I admire.

They had an area dedicated to press only, even senior execs couldn’t get in there. With its own bar full of pastries, fruit, and cereal for breakfast with barista-style coffees. And then own separate lunch to have at desks provided in different formats from up on stools to long tables to collaborate and small, sink-in comfy seats to get your own space. All of course with wifi and soft drinks on tap. All for free.

What I found odd about CogX

Everything that made zero sense to me on why they did what they did for this year’s conference. Both times I’ve been to CogX, they seem to want it to be bigger than it actually is.

Shit, I wouldn’t be surprised if next year they take out Wembley Arena for the conference. For comparison, 02 max capacity is around 20k people. Wembley is around 90k people.

Venue and location

This is going under here as well because I’m confused by the venue space the team chose for the day. It’s a huge place that was rented for the 3-day event. And I think they are trying to become the go-to place in London for this sort of event. They definitely can be, but are running before they can walk in my opinion.

I honestly wish they would settle on a location that will be known for the conference. Probably get a lot more people booking early as they will think, probably similar to me, “Boom, it’s going to be there, I love it there and know the layout, and know I can build an agenda early on.” Works really well for the other big tech conferences I know and have attended.

Similar to how the USA has CES, the UAE has GITEX, France has Viva Tech and the swiftly growing WAICF, and Lisbon has Web Summit. All great events have venues that match the size of those conferences. But they have 100k+ attendees to these events. And honestly, I feel there were maybe 6-8k people at this year’s CogX. The 02 max capacity is 20k and they closed off the top tiers with a lot of evident empty seats.

The website says they were expecting 90k+ visitors. And maybe I need to get to Specsavers to check my eyesight but I’d be amazed if that many people were there. The Web Summit I went to the year before last had a max attendance rate of 70k visitors to compensate for coming out of the pandemic. And the level of people is on a different scale.

Reid Hoffman looked as if he had maybe 2k people in the room? If they moved to a more intimate venue where the max capacity of the room was 2.5k you would have an event that seemed to be much more buzzing. Probably creating more conversations, connections, and valuable opportunities, and attracting more people the following year.

The whole thing baffles me. The potential will be so much greater if they decide to switch to doing it in a venue where they can have an exhibition hall in less than 5 minutes’ walking distance next to an arena and break-out areas.

But honestly would get a lot more value out of intimate space rather than having to get a tube to another part of the venue and having spaces over god knows how many square feet. Really hope they change this previous thinking as annoyed me with Kings Cross and now with this one.

Discounting of tickets and executive suites

Personally, I’d be really pissed off if I bought a ticket in May at full value to find out that tickets were being sold for 50% off a week before the festival was to take place. When I see something like that go on sale, just makes me think they are desperate to make sales as not near quota. And that does the opposite to think it’s not going to be all it’s hyped up to be.

What I will say is it’s possible that they refunded everyone who bought before the discount a reimbursement. If that happened to you, would love for you to let me know in the comments.

Another thing that surprised me was that they offered me, representing The AI Journal an executive lounge the week before the conference was starting. This points to one thing, they have not sold enough.

And I mean they offered it to me completely free with no cost. The same thing was going for thousands of pounds on the website. Don’t get me wrong, massively appreciated the offer. But fuck me, that’s a lot to be giving away for free to fill capacity and make it look fuller.

Thinking about it when you looked up at the executive suites, they were empty. And it was a layout of one suite on top of the next. I’d say at least two-thirds of them have the TV screens of the main stage on but no one in them.

Again, something that if I had sponsored would have been pissed off about to see I’ve paid all this, and then they are giving it away for free to the next person.

Will I be attending next year?

Probably yes. There’s nothing there making me think I need to go again. But it is a bit of fun, a reason to meet familiar faces, have a Guinness, and learn one or two top-level items I don’t know about.

And I’m not saying that what I’ve learned at both CogX’s has been massively valuable enough to justify the ticket prices. Most things discussed I can find out in much more depth from online podcasts, articles, subscriptions in my own time for a lot less cost. For example, the amount of info I can get from a premium subscription from Wall Street Journal trumps the info I can get from attending most events. But it gives that opportunity to meet in person so not actually sure that’s a fair comparison.

I would also suggest that more out-of-hours events take place. Honestly, when Web Summit does its night time mixers and takes over one of the main streets, that place is buzzing. Would say I did more new business there over beers and going on a bar crawl then meeting them the next day and having some form of bond. Something Web Summit is great at organizing press events, lunches, and dinners. But again, this isn’t that event. And something to that scale in London is probably quite tricky.

To elaborate on my answer to going again, it wouldn’t take much such as a holiday at that time, a customer meeting to be at, or another event to cancel going to this and go to that. It’s not something for me, my business that is a MUST attend. It’s simply nice to do.

If they upped the engagement and picked a more intimate venue with more perks for the price of tickets, reckon you’ll see it become a lot more popular and maybe that will turn it into a MUST-be-at event for me and others.

But again, this is just my opinion. Would love to hear yours and see what you think. Will I be seeing you at any upcoming tech conferences in the remainder of 2023?