Resource:A TEDxUniversity Guide
A TEDxUniversity Guide: How We Went From Nothing To More Than $35k In Funding, 500 Attendees and 18 Top Notch Speakers In Only One Year
By Jack Goodwin, University of California San Diego
Well, I should probably start by saying that it wasn’t easy. Creating a TEDx event is no simple process, and creating one at a university doesn’t make it any less difficult. It is said that the best things in life don’t come easily and that is no less true here. There will be barriers of all types to overcome, no doubt, but one thing remains clear: people are TEDx’s most valuable asset. Once you inspire great minds around ideas worth spreading, everything else will follow. Here are 10 short and sweet guidelines on how to hold a TEDx university event, in order of priority.
1. Secure the TEDx license: Apply early and make sure you are not infringing on any school naming policies. This can be a very back a forth process, but without the rights to hold an event, it will never happen. Try to plan for a Saturday that is not a holiday and not the week before finals. Saturday is best in most communities because there is no school and no church, as TEDx events are typically quite long.
2. Form the organizing team: Select the size of the event you want (ie number of attendees, funding needed to run the event) and then base the size and commitment level of your team from there. Our event finished with 17 undergraduate students on the organizing team split into four subdivisions. This is excluding the university officials we worked very close with. Many other teams may include the efforts of graduate students or even full time employees within or outside of the university itself, so play accordingly. The three essential university officials for us took on the roles of legal advice, fiscal advice and then someone connected with the donors of the university. These will be absolutely key figures moving forward.
3. Secure the Venue: We started searching 9 months in advance and we were already too late to hold our TEDx event on campus. We ended up at the fanciest place possible, a Fortune 500 company presentation hall located off-campus, but it took massive amounts of legal paperwork to get the okay from both the university and the company. Start the search early and do whatever you have to do to pay the venue holding deposit, including taking out a university loan in the name of your (hopefully) registered TEDx, campus-affiliated group.
4. Begin nominating, selecting and contacting speakers: What worked well for us was having a two sided nomination process. Our organizing team made a list of speakers that they wanted to have at the event and then we narrowed it down internally. The second half of our speaker lineup was determined by public nominations and selections. Once speakers contact you back with a yes or a no, the organizing team will select what they think is the most diverse and balanced lineup of speakers for the event. This is the largest task on the team and will take up a lot of time.
5. Raise funding: Start with your university contacts, then work outward. There will be many different internal funding options within a university as long as you can give a good pitch. Act like an entrepreneur in this regard and see what comes of it. Simultaneously, contact some local companies with a large presence in your region. The only way these companies will ever give you funding is if you have access to a 501c3 certified non-profit account representing your TEDx group. This way, the company can use the donation as a tax write-off, making it very appealing for many companies. Larger companies will sometimes ask to be the sole sponsor of an event, an all or nothing approach. One company casually said they would give us $30k if they could be the sole sponsor. We had accepted and used other funding at the time, so this method will not work for everyone, but if it does, take it.
6. Spread the word: Be vocal and be seen. Get some team t-shirts, go to events and meet people, run around and give away a ticket or two if friends spread the word. Keep it under control for the beginning, but really step up marketing with about a month to go until your event date.
7. Set up ticket sales. We used Eventbright. It was an amazing service, though it did take a large cut of money. It is also possible to sell physical tickets on campus, which saves money, but it is up to you. Make the ticket price the difference between the funding you have at the moment minus what you need to hold the event then divide the difference by the number of tickets you have for sale. We charged less for students and more for everyone else because students were our focus, but it is different for every campus.
8. Secure a solid tech team to run the event: If you have a tech/media genius on your team who knows how to run the system of the venue, brilliant. If not, it is absolutely worth it to hire a professional team. This includes everything from setting up mic’s to recording the show. Things become crazy the day of the event and, at least in our case, we wanted our organizing committee to see as much of the event as possible.
9. Create a minute by minute schedule of everything: this includes speakers, breaks, intermissions, jokes, crowd interaction, what-have-you. Once things get going, it is hard to remember every minute (as in small) detail. Due to not being able to discuss things across the room or quickly via group text, its best to have one person call the show on a radio headset and then have physical copies of the schedule so everyone else can follow along.
10. Have fun. Take advantage of this amazing opportunity and run with it. The connections you will gain after this event finishes (assuming everything goes well) will be amazing and absolutely worth it. -end
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