Can YaYY Make Us Fall in Love With Conferences Again?

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YaYY 2013 attendees pose for the conference's underwater photo booth.

By Stephanie Buck2014-02-24 19:31:31 UTC

When a conference takes place largely in a pool, surrounded by booze, piñatas and Settlers of Catan boards, can you even call it a conference anymore?

For YaYY, nomenclature isn't important. After all, the event doesn't even have an agenda. The No. 1 rule of YaYY (pronounced "Yes and Yes Yes") is to attend the conference with no schedules or expectations whatsoever — and you'd better keep it that way.

"The idea was, if you got a group of smart, engaged individuals together in the right space that great things would happen, even in the absence of a conference structure," cofounder Ann Larie Valentine tells Mashable.

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For its second annual event, YaYY attendees will meet in Palm Springs, Calif., during arguably the hottest month of the year, July. (Hence, the pool.) It's a four-day gathering for "thinkers, futurists, nerds and weirdos," designed to foster informal bonding and intelligent dialogue — about literally any topic.

Most notably, it was designed as the anti-South By Southwest. Or at least, what SXSW has become.

In 2009 Valentine and fellow cofounders Hillary Hartley, Amy Muller, Willo O'Brien and Deb Schultz decided to launch YaYY after a particularly harrowing SXSW in Austin, Texas. According to Valentine, the women lamented the little time they had to actually enjoy each other's company once thrust into the hectic petri dish of South By. Worse, their stress started before the conference: They had spent weeks perfecting their agendas, packing in as much as possible to maximize their time in Texas.

In 2012 they introduced YxYY. (Initially, the founders pronounced the brand "Yes By Yes Yes.") But South By Southwest organizers sent an email requesting they change the name of the event to preserve SXSW's brand.

After much deliberation, says Valentine, they decided to embrace the change. "For those unfamiliar with the craft of improvisational acting, one of the few 'rules' that exist around engaging others on stage is the rule of 'Yes and,'" says the site. By saying "yes" to everything, attendees show they're "committed to positive idea generation," a mission at the heart of the event.

So who cares, anyway?

Quick answer: 400 people care. And it would've been a lot more if the tickets hadn't sold out in 48 hours. Still, the founders enforce a strict cap on the number, not because they can't fit more in the Ace Hotel Palm Springs, but because intimacy is key to the event strategy.

"Watching everyone open up over the first 24 hours and then seeing their delight when they realized that they truly were not being judged but simply were accepted as they were was truly a priceless experience," writes attendee Chris Tacy on his blog.

The problem with a relatively small number of attendees is that the degrees of separation are invariably lower than larger events like SXSW. Valentine says most of YaYY's 2013 roster were friends or friends of friends of one of the founders. It makes for a predictable, albeit tight-knit, community that at times seems more like a vacation than an educational conference.

To keep the event feeling fresh, YaYY will have to figure out a way to bring in new perspectives each year, or it risks becoming stale. Either that, or rebrand itself as more of a retreat than a public event.

In addition to Campari cocktails and giant floating pretzels, YaYY 2013 consisted of a series of "poolside primers." These informal conversations could cover anything from modern feminist theory to an Ignite presentation on cephalopods. Between conversations, you can head to the impromptu friendship bracelet circle. If you need a breather, check out the Introvert Room, where attendees sit in blessed silence.

In a matter of minutes, the entire event could change. Coordinators take suggestions from attendees on what to tackle next, then announce the plans a few minutes ahead of time. Its this organic, participant-created mission that powers the conference.

"The quality of an un-conference is entirely dependent on the ability of the attendees to make their own meaning," says attendee Ian McFarland. "The conversations we had at YaYY were meaningful on more axes than just 'growth hacking 101' or 'how to SEO your way to fame and fortune.'”

He and others refer to the panels that seem so typical of today's mega-conferences, and the types of people that seem to gravitate to these events. Tacy calls it "The Douchebag Issue."

"The tech world has a bunch of very f*cking loud douchebags," he writes. "But this event made me realize that this community also has a lot of really wonderful (often quiet) people ... Until YaYY there was no way for this community to self-organize in a manner that wasn't immediately co-opted by the asshats (and was safe and respectful as a result)."

The challenge in the future is to keep YaYY incubated without turning away a certain brand of "douchebag," and thus, turning exclusionary.

An attendee wears branded YxYY earrings while posing for the underwater photo booth camera.

Carla Borsoi, another YaYY participant, has attended a huge range of conferences over the years, watching them evolve and grow exponentially along the way.

She says events like YaYY aren't looking to dethrone bigger conferences, like SXSW. In fact, it's not about comparing mega-huge events to smaller ones at all. Simply, people are always on the hunt for the "new," and they're seeking alternatives to now well-established events.

The light bulb moment for Borsoi came two years ago, at SXSW, one of eight years she's attended: "I was really bummed on the Tuesday of the conference because I hadn't had that 'moment' where you run into a person and talk to them about life, the universe, and everything," she says. "That used to be a typical experience at SXSW and it doesn't feel like those moments happen as frequently there anymore."

True, YaYY's attendance accounts for roughly 1.5% of SXSW's approximate 30,000 attendees and 0.2% of CES' 150,000. The smaller roll call fosters a more collaborative, intimate environment, yes. But also, fewer people means less marketing means less money. Big brands aren't competing for attention at smaller venues.

"Last year Oreo was one of the big sponsors [at SXSW]. This isn't a ding on them, but people seem to want an experience less marked by that," says Borsoi.

However, she believes there's room for all kinds of experiences and plans to continue attending large and small conferences in tandem.

Attendees sit by the pool at YxYY 2013 and watch artists light paint for slow shutter speed cameras.

Other than SXSW, some of YaYY's attendees and founders can't help but draw comparisons to Burning Man, as well, the notoriously drug-friendly art installation-dance festival in the middle of the Black Rock Desert of Nevada.

Valentine herself is a self-described "Burner," having visited the pop-up community for several years. She hesitates to draw direct comparisons, but she sees some of the same concepts at play.

"The idea that the participants are given a lot of freedom to create experiences for each other to share during the event is the biggest parallel," she says.

True, some people found the lack of structure challenging in YaYY's first year, Valentine says, for two reasons: Either they didn't feel comfortable organically engaging with others, or they worried a lack of schedules meant they missed something important (FOMO, she says).

Organizers plan to address those fears in 2014, without changing the event's core: unscheduling.

"It can be hard at YaYY, when you have a Settlers of Catan tournament next to a group debating comic books next to an Ignite presentation next to a pool flotilla of folks debating the future of money," she says.

Yep, this conference sounds really rough.

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Topics: conferences, Events, Lifestyle, Startups, SXSW 2013, Travel & Leisure, U.S., Work & Play