My first ever Eisteddfod and what an adventure it has been. As a comms team we decided very early on in the year that we wanted to have a presence at the Eisteddfod but never did I imagine we would end up launching a book and having the Minister for Education and Welsh Language deliver our opening keynote.
My role for the Eisteddfod was managing the event for our official book launch, and the biggest learning curve I can take away from my Eisteddfod experience is that you can never stand still. There are always lots of moving parts you have to navigate when running an event from the promotion, to the running order, to the stakeholder relations, to the tech support and the ever changing roles and responsibilities. What made it easier for us during the whole event planning process is that we had very clear objectives and metrics from the start which gave the whole team laser focus.
And with events, no matter how much preparation you put into the event you can never prepare for the live theatre of events. Things will go wrong that are out of your control (tech not working 5 minutes before your chair goes in stage and you're in a very very very hot and stuffy tent). The best thing you can do is keep calm, don't beat yourself up and let the magic of live theatre take it where it needs to.
I do love working on events of this scale. There is a special bonding experience between staff members in the run you just can't recreate in other work scenarios. But I must say what I love even more - the Eisteddfod. What a special event in the annual calendar this is. A celebration of everything that is good about the Welsh culture and language (another thing which I'm still trying to navigate as an English person!)
We received two pieces of media cover about the launch
North Wales Chronicle
Pioneering Welsh language digital service to be unveiled at Gwynedd Eisteddfod
Business Wales Wales
https://businessnewswales.com/new-approach-to-designing-bilingual-digital-services-unveiled/
https://twitter.com/NTFWwbl/status/1689196727276875776
https://twitter.com/paulsq/status/1689584520121466880
https://twitter.com/cangen_abertawe/status/1689605754305556481
https://twitter.com/NatResWales/status/1689659254964170752
https://twitter.com/cdps_cymru/status/1692148678343950534?s=20
We tried something new whilst at the Eisteddfod, and that was creating a social video. It’s only something short and snappy, but displaying our personality across socials is something we’re aiming to do. We want to be approachable, and this is one way of doing so!