Panels at YouTube Conventions

EmilyJM

EmilyJM

I Love YTtalk
Hey there guys, so at the weekend I went to my first YouTube convention - Summer In The City. & I went to many panels whilst I was there, all the panels went well and I enjoyed them apart from one, the Smaller YouTubers panel.

Overall, it kinda sucked. Me & a lot of smaller YouTubers who went in expected a proper discussion on what its like to be a small YouTuber, how to deal with certain things and tips on stuff etc. What we got was a bunch of people on a panel sweeping all that stuff under the rug & promoting their channels or their friends channel and telling us subscribers don't matter to them... sure. I keep calling them fluffy people because they were trying to be as wonderful as possible on that panel so people would like them & subscribe rather than getting into the nitty gritty. Its not all their fault though, there were no set questions so it was a free-for-all from the audience. eh. never again.

So my question is, what is your experience with panels at YouTube conventions? & have you had any experiences where you've also just wanted to leave?
 
I went to VidCon this year on the Creator track and those panels were fantastic - they were very industry/problem-solving focused (ie. not super personal or promotional) - it was awesome to hear the practical things that people do and experience, and there were some amazing discussions. Even the couple of Community panels I went to were more about the process of making content than promotion.
I only went to the Creator Day at SiTC last year and again that was very practical - was the panel you went to part of that this year or was it open to everyone?
 
Catie WahWah said:
I only went to the Creator Day at SiTC last year and again that was very practical - was the panel you went to part of that this year or was it open to everyone?
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The Smaller YouTubers panel was on the Sunday.

That's surprising. I've only ever heard great things about the Smaller YouTubers panel, and I've heard by so many people that it was brilliant this year.
 
jessiblahtv said:
The Smaller YouTubers panel was on the Sunday.

That's surprising. I've only ever heard great things about the Smaller YouTubers panel, and I've heard by so many people that it was brilliant this year.
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interestingly everyone I asked didn't have an opinion on it until I pointed out that I learnt nothing from it. Also this year when a couple of people left about 10 - 15 minutes in, they all called them out for leaving which meant I no longer felt comfortable leaving myself and had to sit through another 40 minutes.
Maybe I'm just too much of a blunt and direct person that what I expect from panels is very different to what the other people in the room wanted but I was frustrated
 
EmilyJM said:
interestingly everyone I asked didn't have an opinion on it until I pointed out that I learnt nothing from it. Also this year when a couple of people left about 10 - 15 minutes in, they all called them out for leaving which meant I no longer felt comfortable leaving myself and had to sit through another 40 minutes.
Maybe I'm just too much of a blunt and direct person that what I expect from panels is very different to what the other people in the room wanted but I was frustrated
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That sucks. First off, I think that's pretty bad manners to call out people leaving and making people feel uncomfortable like that. Fluffy nonsense also ticks me off when I'm trying to learn. I wonder if the panel was prepped in any way to either be "fluffy" or there were some other behind the scenes things that might have affected the suckiness of the panel.
 
Catie WahWah said:
I went to VidCon this year on the Creator track and those panels were fantastic - they were very industry/problem-solving focused (ie. not super personal or promotional) - it was awesome to hear the practical things that people do and experience, and there were some amazing discussions.
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Agreed! That is to bad about the SiTC panel--sounds like the organizers did a bad job. Everything at VidCon was first-rate. Probably not a surprise, as the Green brothers are very serious about YouTube, and VidCon is their baby.
 
I had the same issues with Vidcon. They would reserve 15 minutes at the end of the panel for the audience to ask questions regarding the focus of the panel but a lot of the time, people asked questions about the YouTuber who was on the panel.
 
Hey Emily, You may not remember but I briefly said hello to you in line at SITC last week on the Friday when we were in the queue for our wristbands. Now all weekend I was raving on about the small youtubers panel before it actually happened on the Sunday because of how amazing the panel was in 2014, if you google it you will find the video for the one that happened that year and you will understand why everyone was raving about it this year. Now the problem with this years one was there was such a huge expectation that it would replicate the previous year and I'll be honest and say it was a bit of an anti-climax.

Now just to state for the record, SITC is well organised and like Emily said, most of the panels were amazing but this years small youtubers panel was a bit of a let down. It went straight to a question and answer session with mainly people plugging each others channels. I don't want to give myself a bad name because some of the content creators who were on that panel I do respect but there was not much to be learnt from the experience. With panels it can sometimes just be hit and miss, people from from other countries who go to different conventions can say theirs were better but in truth, you just don't know. On the whole I'm just glad I enjoyed the whole SITC experience and already look forward to next years small youtubers panel.
 
Sorry you had a bad time, Emily! Haven't been to a convention myself, but I can see why that'd be a bit frustrating. But like you said, without a real set of questions, and it just being a free-for-all, it was probably always bound to go that way (especially since some audience members would want exactly what you don't want, which is to just chat about the YouTubers on the panel...).
 
BitsOfBen said:
Hey Emily, You may not remember but I briefly said hello to you in line at SITC last week on the Friday when we were in the queue for our wristbands. Now all weekend I was raving on about the small youtubers panel before it actually happened on the Sunday because of how amazing the panel was in 2014, if you google it you will find the video for the one that happened that year and you will understand why everyone was raving about it this year. Now the problem with this years one was there was such a huge expectation that it would replicate the previous year and I'll be honest and say it was a bit of an anti-climax.

Now just to state for the record, SITC is well organised and like Emily said, most of the panels were amazing but this years small youtubers panel was a bit of a let down. It went straight to a question and answer session with mainly people plugging each others channels. I don't want to give myself a bad name because some of the content creators who were on that panel I do respect but there was not much to be learnt from the experience. With panels it can sometimes just be hit and miss, people from from other countries who go to different conventions can say theirs were better but in truth, you just don't know. On the whole I'm just glad I enjoyed the whole SITC experience and already look forward to next years small youtubers panel.
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I remember you! & there were a couple of people on the panel who I also like as YouTubers but obviously it wasn't the best. I will look up last years, I feel like that will be much better by the sound of it :') I might stop by the panel next year, I'll see how I feel. Glad that I wasn't the only one who thought it was not great and hopefully it'll be back up to a A* standard next year :)
 
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