Everyone claps for the person with the microphone. I want to talk about the peop
By Michael Lutterodt Quarcoo Amaning · October 17, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
Everyone claps for the person with the microphone. I want to talk about the people with the radios.
Meta Fest UK: 5 stages. 40+ speakers. 11 sessions. 3 workshops. 850 attendees. One day.
I hosted it. That's the easy bit — you walk on, the lights are already right, the room is already full, the timings already work.
Here's the moment I keep coming back to. Somewhere in the run-up, between the five venues and the forty speakers and the eight hundred and fifty people, somebody on that team stopped to work out how long it would take me to get home — and what time I'd realistically need to be there the next morning.
Nobody's job description includes that. It isn't on a run sheet. Someone just decided it mattered.
And that's the whole thing, isn't it. I got to go out there and joke, educate, entertain, hopefully inspire a few people — because a group of people I mostly didn't see had already removed every reason I might not be able to.
However good you are on stage, you are only ever as strong as your production team.
So thank you Danielle Quinn, Lauren Quilty, Michaela Ingels Megan Donovan , Tess Green Fábio C Barreiros and Kristin (KB) Bayliss Ellie Baker — and Kathy Gallagher and @Dan Steggall/ Daniel Steggall who carried it on the ground.
It takes one person not doing their job for a day like that to come apart. Nobody dropped it. Not once.
Don't just like this post. Go and tell one person behind the scenes that you noticed.
#MetaFest