NYT Climate Hub Event Case Study 4th – 12th November 2021

During COP26 in Glasgow, our client, The New York Times, created the most ambitious journalism and event project in their 170 year history, The New York Times Climate Hub.

OBJECTIVES

• To position The New York Times as the world leader and the ultimate Source of Truth around this global climate emergency.
• To serve a huge online audience as well as offering attendees of COP26 a chance to experience in-person sessions in their groundbreaking and creative Climate Hub.
• To give Sponsors and Partners the opportunity to curate their own programme content and special invited audiences – all hosted within the incredible spaces and using the infrastructure the NYT created.

“We are very appreciative of the
support you provided on what was
always going to be a bold, ambitious
endeavour. That it was a success was a
big collective effort and Brightspace
was a key ingredient in the cocktail.”

STEPHEN DUNBAR-JOHNSON
President, International,
The New York Times Company

CHALLENGES

• Cutting edge content, by design is always agile, reactive and ever changing! The programme was fluid with very little standardised or advance information.

• Designing and delivering the ultimate flexible ticketing system – and individually chosen programming – is incredibly complex from both a user experience and data handling perspective.
• Multiple spaces, session by session content, and creating a ‘Hub’ drop-in feel – all within the incredibly strict COVID and event licensing constraints of the local authority.
• A huge number of diverse and high-profile stakeholders with often competing and always fundamental needs. Including within NYT itself, the corporate sponsors and partners, activist organisations, many different media outlets and an ENORMOUS crew to bring it all to life!
• A real and considerable risk of protestors and activists targeting the event.
• An event of this size and complexity was a new experience for the both the internal NYT events team and their delivery partners.

SOLUTIONS

• In just eight weeks, Hybrid Event Solutions providedfull delegate pre-event registration system design and fully managed this system in the lead up to the event. The comprehensive system also provided contactless badging and session scanning solutions and GDPR compliant database management.

• As a team, we acted as stakeholder liaison and support for NYT and and supporting agencies.
• Our partner, Brightspace Events is IOSH trained and supported the event with COVID security services.
• In accordance with the brief, we sourced fully sustainable, branded event stock (lanyards, wristbands, etc.) and managed event stock logistics.
• Every system, process and the whole staffing structure for the entire venue was designed around being agile, flexible and insanely quick and clear communications.
• Working incredibly closely with the security team, the venue and the client, every delegate was carefully checked and vetted – yet welcomed with a warm smile and clear direction.

“I was extremely lucky to work with
such a wonderful group of true
professionals who, in my opinion,
were the true heroes of Climate Hub!”

RONA PERRY
Marketing Manager, International,
The New York Times Company.

“to all the team at Brightspace for
the amazing work you did in such a
short space of time”

JOHN SCULLY
Marketing Director, International,
The New York Times Company.

Newsletter signup