Love the membership events, but hard to attend when living in Europe

General
#1

Dear fellow Obscure Atlassians,

I’d love to attend some of the events that are organized by AO, but some of the most interesting ones take place in the middle of my European night (e.g. 1:30 AM – 2:30 AM CET), under the week no less, and thus I cannot.

Do you find yourselves in a similar dilemma, being a non-US resident or ex-pat? If so, maybe we can kindly ask AO to add some events that fit a European schedule as well? And potentially other places around the globe?

Happy to hear from y’all!
Serenitea :tea:

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#2

@serenitea Thanks so much for starting this conversation!

This is definitely something we’ve been trying to figure out at Atlas Obscura as well. While scheduling experiences for Eastern Time in the US is the best way to make them available to the greatest number of our members, it still leaves many people out, including, of course, those in Europe, and even some in the western United States.

I’m happy to take this on, and would love to hear some initial thoughts on what a good time would be. Is it simply earlier in the day, or would it also make sense to move to the weekend?

By the way, one small thing we’re working on is making recordings available after the experience. It’s not the same as being there live, of course, but it would allow members to watch at the time that works for them.

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#3

@tyler, thanks for the fast reply!

I am glad to hear you guys already have this on your radar.

One thing that might work is indeed having recordings, maybe with the option to ask questions beforehand? The crew could then pick the best ones and answer them during the event. No Ersatz, especially for Trivia Night, surely, but it would be great to have this.

Some thoughts on time zones: I worked for an international company a few years back, with offices around the globe. Scheduling meetings that suited everyone was a PITA (pain in the appendix, excuse my Klatchian).

What our managers did was to let one office grasp the nettle and agree to an uncomfortable time slot so that others could easily integrate the meeting into their normal work day. And all offices were taking turns.

For AO this could translate for example into having several times the same event, in different time slots over the stretch of a few weeks (though I don’t know if enough folks are signing up for this to work for you and your partners).

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#4

I also live in a timezone with several hours of difference with the Eastern U.S. and am normally not able to attend the members events because of this.

For the most part, I think the event recordings are a very good idea for a majority of them. I had subscribed to another course that got cancelled, then watched the video for it and had no problem as it wasn’t particularly interactive.

Trivia nights are the main expection to this, since the interactivity aspect is the main draw. In the case of these, I think I would prefer to see them moved to the weekends. Otherwise, an earlier start would work as I could join in at a time that isn’t too late at night for me.

#5

Thanks @serenitea and @linkogecko!

I have a small but positive update. As noted, the Member Trivia Nights don’t work great as recordings, but this month for the first time we’ll be making recordings available for two of our Member experiences:


I’ll be sharing recordings with our members via email once each of those experiences has been completed. Also still looking into some weekend and daytime experiences—will keep you posted!

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#6

Awesome, you rock :metal: Tyler! Thanks also for the shout-out in your most recent mail. I appreciate it and are happy that things are in motion. :steam_locomotive: