Picture courtesy of Sarah Lappin.
We still feel as though we’re coming back to Earth after last week’s UK Space Conference in Newport.
Overall, it was a really positive event for Pixalytics. We were busy at our stand throughout the conference with lots of people to talk to and discuss satellites, Earth Observation and our own Pixalytics products. Our stand was in the Small Business Zone at the far end of the Exhibition Hall, and whilst it wasn’t as big as the other stands it didn’t feel as though we had any fewer visitors – and of course, it was cheaper which is a big plus for small businesses like us. There were a couple of key positives for the location. Firstly, we were next to two of the food and coffee stands – always a busy area for conferences – and opposite the Spotlight Stage that had regular talks and presentations throughout the event. The Networking Event on Tuesday evening was also focussed around this
Networking Evening. Picture courtesy of Sarah Lappin.
stage, and so apart from a great view of the talks there were also lots of people around!
We came home with a pile of business cards, the majority of which have associated actions and we’ll be working through those this week. So, if we spoke to you at the conference and promised to get in touch – we will and you’ll hear from us over the next couple of days! Apart from the obvious new contacts, and reengaging with existing clients and friends, we also picked up a few strong leads for work with new clients.
As for the conference itself, we wrote a bit about day one for last week’s blog – which you can read here – however, we didn’t really manage to get into any of the other sessions due to manning the stand and our side events. We did catch some of the other plenary sessions as they were streamed into the exhibition hall; however, it was only snippets between talking to people! For us, even the third day was busy – even with the morning-after the Gala Dinner quietness!
Our side events went well. Robert presented his poster on the second day and had some good conversations with people at the session. Andy did the Pitch to Primes, which was to an unexpected 10 ‘Dragons’ of the space industry; we did pick-up a few contacts from that session and we learnt a huge amount about what a good pitch really looks like – particularly from Data Duopoly who were fantastic and were understandably declared the event winners! Sam gave a bit of a provocative talk on the spotlight stage on the Friday titled ‘Earth Observation – Myths and Lies’, which again generated comments and contacts.
The venue and the organisation of the event were also really good. It was the first event at the International Conference Centre – and we heard rumours that they were still screwing in chairs in the auditorium just hours before the conference began. The exhibition hall was very light and airy, there was a lot of breakout space and so despite a large number of delegates, it was still possible to find a quiet corner. The use of the refillable water fountains was also a great success with a lot less of the normal plastic bottles visible. There was also a stunning large moon globe floating above everyone’s head in the entrance, and large red dragon just outside!
Once again we thoroughly enjoyed the UK Space Conference and we’re definitely planning to be back in 2021!!!!
